


To Ourselves and Our Posterity

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood, Gen, Parent Death, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for a prompt. One day, Sparatus all of a sudden receives a phone call to report to C-Sec. It turns out that Hannah, in the event of her death, appointed Sparatus as Jane's guardian. Sparatus is now the guardian of a young human child and doesn't know what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We the People

Upon realizing that the very important message he had received regarding ‘certain members of his posterity’ involved speaking to the head of the Citadel Adoption Agency, Sparatus’ feelings on the matter evolved from a sick churning in his gizzard (and the insatiable urge to chomp on the nearest deposit of soil to get rid of it) to a cacophonous beating of his heart as though it would pop out of his throat and start beating him to death. And that was before he had even made it to the office in question.

The elevator, as usual for most Citadel elevators, was rather slow in getting to its destination. The only elevator he knew of that wasn’t slow was the one that went from the presidium to the Citadel Tower, though he had heard tell of a system in place that was trying to make the elevators go faster. That led to a lot of bickering, hemming and hawing about the keepers and their role in keeping the Citadel up and running and it was for this reason that Sparatus hated his job with the passion of a raving shatha.

By the time the elevator had stopped and the doors opened, Sparatus had officially cursed the names of everyone in the entire building and sending a hateful prayer to the spirit of this accursed Adoption Agency for daring to claim that this situation had anything to do with him. Nevertheless, he held himself straight and walked directly to the center of the building, where a glass door stood between him and the asari head of the agency herself.

The doors opened with a small hum and he walked straight to the asari. The nametag on the desk dubbed her as Administrator Amidai T’Donya, and she stood up in his presence. A cool air hung between them like freshly-fallen snow (and seeing as Sparatus had only ever encountered snow once in his life under unfavorable circumstances, this did not bode well for either of them).

“Administrator T’Donya.” Sparatus said coolly.

“Councilor Sparatus. I would like to take the opportunity to say that I appreciate your arrival on such short notice.” T’Donya responded. Sparatus shifted his shoulder back a fraction.

“The message I received was listed as high priority _and_ as a private message regarding a family member of mine. I sincerely hope that this is not some sort of cruel joke, T’Donya, or I will not take kindly to any pleas made by the Citadel Adoption Agency as a result of this encounter.”

“This is no joke, Councilor. Though even I have a hard time understanding how this happened…” T’Donya tilted her head down, and Sparatus felt as though he was either going to throw up on the spot or eat her chair in order to get that sick feeling to _go away already._

“Councilor, I assume you have been briefed on a recent pirate attack on a Citadel Civilian Ship near the Terminus Systems?” T’Donya continued.

“Of course,” The feeling got worse and worse oh spirits don’t puke, “The ship was to take retired Alliance Soldiers to the human colony of Mindoir. As the turian councilor it is my duty to ensure the safety of civilian ships travelling through Citadel Space, and this attack was an insulting occurrence on behalf of the turian defense force. Your point being.”

T’Donya looked down towards her desk, at a particular stack of datapads a little off to the side. Of course Sparatus knew about that ship. It was indeed his job to know about that ship. If he could just cling to that thought, keep his mind from wandering into the undeniable fact that he was trying to ignore was connected to this meeting, then maybe he could keep himself from spilling his guts onto the carpets and ruining his image and losing his council position and being forced to deal with the fact that--

“My point is, Councilor… there were exactly 100 escape shuttles on that ship, each large enough to hold ten persons of average human height.” She swiped one of the datapads off of the pile, and held it out to Sparatus. He stared at it.

“Of those 100 escape shuttles, only 37 successfully made it away from the wreckage. Those 37 shuttles each housed the maximum of 10 persons, with some housing up to three small children, all ages 4 to six.” He grabbed the datapad. So many names on this list. Casualties, all of them. If he swiped his finger the right way he would be taken to a list of final wills and testaments, a written record of human creation that designated possessions to certain people they assumed would still be alive. He swiped again, and it returned to the list of casualties. He scrolled down to the names that began with the human letter ‘S’.

“The Human Systems Alliance successfully recovered the wills and testaments of all casualties that could be recovered, or that existed in the first place.” Don’t puke _don’t puke._ “I believe you are familiar with former Alliance captain Hannah Shep…”

“ _Yes,_ Administrator, I am in fact familiar with Systems Alliance captain Hannah Shepard. As I recall she was killed by batarians while ejecting an escape pod holding three other humans. Now miss T’Donya I would advise you to get to the point quickly before I leave the premises on the assumption that you are only telling me things of which I am already aware of, as I am a very busy man and I have duties to tend to.” If he held onto the datapad any tighter he would have shattered it by now and all of his instincts told him that his stomach was trying to digest itself _don’t puke dammit_.

“Hannah Shepard left something to you, Councilor Sparatus.” T’Donya stated hoarsely. Sparatus held on even tighter to the datapad. How it hadn’t broken by now he had no idea.

“What did she leave behind.” Sparatus whispered.

“A young human child.” T’Donya said, her voice cracking. “In the event that Hannah was killed and her husband was unavailable, she left her only daughter, Jane Shepard, in the care of turian Councilor Datharn Sparatus.”

 Sparatus stared so fiercely at the datapad’s text, reading word for word the last will and testament of Captain Hannah Shepard. Perhaps the only human in the entire galaxy he had ever had a positive encounter with. And she had been stupid enough to leave a human child under his care in the event of both her death and the death of her husband.

“And this… Jane… where is she?” Sparatus choked out, half expecting his panicking heart to jump out of his larynx.

“She is currently under the care of the Citadel Adoption Agency.” T’Donya responded. “According to human law, you are entitled to disavow the will of the late Hannah Shepard and leave Jane under the care of the Citadel Adoption Agency, or accept the will and adopt Jane to your household under human law.”

Sparatus set down the datapad. He stood up, with abhorrent posture to boot, and looked T’Donya straight in the eye. It took him a moment to find his voice again, and after swallowing his heart back down his throat about four times, he finally blurted out;

“Where do I sign?”


	2. In Order to Create

 “Well, Solana was pretty easy to raise.” Vakarian’s voice echoed in his mind. Sparatus recalled his friend’s advice clearly from the vid-comm he shared with him yesterday as he sat waiting for the workers in the Adoption Agency worked to get Jane Shepard out of her hidey-hole to meet her new father. Sparatus shook his head. Three days, he had waited for the paperwork to finish. The real hang-up wasn’t so much the signatures as it was trying to keep up communications on a completely private network.

“When So was 4 years old she was already itching for her fifteenth birthday and started practicing with the blade. Always had a problem with eating her bones though, kept insisting that they tasted gross. I told her that if she didn’t want her own bones to be brittle she’d have to eat at least some of them for the marrow inside of it, but she wouldn’t listen.

“When it comes down to it, a kid who hasn’t hit their sixth birthday is usually trying to find their place in the world in relation to all the adults around them. Especially if this… ‘Jane’…? If Jane is anything like Solana was, she’ll be jumping off the walls and trying to kill bugs in her spare time. Try to keep Jane busy with household chores or something similar, so that she can burn the energy off.” Vakarian suggested.

Sparatus had done his best. In the interim between signing his part of the paperwork and arranging for Jane, he made a simple list of things that the little human girl could do to expend excess energy in a productive way. Considering her height and build, and her age, she would perhaps be best suited to learn how to clean house, such as sweeping the floors, dusting off the counters, and keeping things organized by shape and color. He’d gotten her a series of differently colored blocks for that very purpose.

Thankfully, Vakarian was more than willing to help him out. After knowing each other since boot camp, Sparatus had come to trust Vakarian to do things right when the time came. Knowing that he had someone to turn to at a time like this was a boon, especially since Systems Alliance captain Hannah Shepard died on the *SSV Konietzko Alliance carrier and couldn’t give him any advice at all. Stupid human.

Sparatus had to homeschool her. He still didn’t know exactly what he would teach her, but if he wanted to keep this matter a private affair then public school was out of the question. The humans were distrustful enough of turian agendas after the Relay 314 Incident last year, he doubted he’d be able to enroll her without arousing significant suspicion for his actions by everyone who had ever set foot on the Citadel. However, he also didn’t think he could smuggle a homeschool regiment or educational standards overview from the humans anytime soon.

The list was quickly becoming daunting. From what he recalled of his own schooling, he would have to teach her the history of Palaven, the histories of the 13 Colonies and the Unification War, he’d probably have to teach her how to do mathematics, science lessons were bound to be a ticking time bomb, how to read and write the Galactic Standard Script, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he was missing at least one important subject that the humans would never think to exclude from their school curriculums that hadn’t yet crossed his mind.

In the end, Vakarian had suggested Sparatus just raise her as though he would raise a turian child. Vakarian figured that going about it that way would save some headaches, and that so long as she didn’t eat any dextro foods she would grow to be a fine member of society. Sparatus hoped he was right.

“I have one last thing I want to ask.” Sparatus remembered asking.

“Go ahead, Sparatus.” Vakarian said.

“If… if she wants to start meeting other kids her age. Would you mind having her meet yours?”

Vakarian shifted in his seat.

“Maybe.” Vakarian said. “Solana’s already reached her first *lia'alediy, so she might not want to meet her. Garrus is reaching his third year next week though, so he might be interested. It’d be his first time meeting an alien face-to-face, too…”Sparatus nodded. He hoped the little ones would at the least get along in each other’s presence. With that, he had ended the vid-comm by arranging a time for Vakarian and his boy to meet his ward on the sixth day of the galactic standard week. He’d deal with that when the time came.

As he sat, waiting for the door to open, he considered the few human toys he had ordered for her to play with. Among them, a stuffed brown plush toy with short ears and thick limbs called a ‘teddy bear’. According to human history, a ‘teddy bear’ was named after one of their Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, refused to kill a creature called a bear because the circumstances around its capture were deemed ‘unsportsmanlike’. Hopefully she’d take it as a familiar element in an unfamiliar environment and have positive results.

Sparatus had also ordered the import of a ‘dog’ which was to arrive from its homeworld in a week. There were several breeds according to the extranet pet store he had ordered it from, such as ‘husky dog’ and ‘golden retriever dog’, each with interesting photographs and dimensions. He eventually chose the one labeled ‘fish dog’ out of a slew of other kinds, hoping that the lack of a picture on that dog’s profile wouldn’t come back to bite him later. Now, however, the only thing he still had to take care of was actually taking the kid to his house.

Finally, the door opened.

Jane’s fringe was orange. Sparatus had no idea that human fringes could even be orange, but hers was a shade that was unmistakably orange. The kind of orange that resembled the bark of trees on Palaven. Her skin was light, with speckles all over that reminded him of asari birthmarks. Her eyes were the exact same color as her mother’s, and it was in that moment that Sparatus knew without a doubt that this was the worst decision he had ever made.

But he was a good turian, and he wasn’t about to go back on his word now. This girl had been through enough. He stood up from his chair and faced the brown-skinned human man and human child together, nodding to the adult (his uniform suggested ties to the Alliance).

“Greetings Councilor, my name is Captain David Anderson of the Human Systems Alliance. I’m happy to say that the paperwork went through in the end. Jane is ready to go with you.” Anderson looked down towards Jane, who was holding onto his pant leg like crazy.

“See, Jane? This is your new dad.” Anderson said, smiling. Jane looked up at him, then back at Sparatus. Sparatus’ mandibles twitched, then expanded a little in an imitation of a smile. Jane blinked.

“He doesn’t look like a dad.” Jane said. Sparatus clamped his mandibles back into place. In all honesty, Sparatus agreed completely with her statement, but Hannah wanted him to take care of Jane so he was going to take care of Jane even if he risked life and limb. “He’s all pointy. Like the dinosaur-men who were on our ship.”

Oh. She was just unaccustomed to calling a turian “dad”. That would be much easier to deal with than the alternative. Anderson looked worried for a moment, then continued speaking.

“These dinosaur-men are called turians, Jane. This turian agreed to take care of you after you left the escape shuttle.” Anderson explained tenderly. Jane suddenly leaned away from his leg to get a look at Sparatus from a different angle.

“Are you my uncle Spartacus!?” She asked. Sparatus blinked, and peered down at Jane. So, Hannah did mention him to her then. This was going to be easier than he thought.

“Well, my name is Sparatus, but yes, I believe I am the one you’re referring to.” He said. Jane blinked a bit, then beamed.

“My momma said that the Alliance was going to take me to Uncle Spartacus after I got off the shuttle! She said that Spartacus would take care of me while she was gone.” She said. Ah, so it wouldn’t be that easy. Jane didn’t seem to comprehend that her mother was dead. That was… problematic.

“Please, Jane, call me Sparatus.” He said, then quickly added, “But don’t worry, I’m here to take care of you from now on.” Jane pursed her lips together. The same way Hannah pursed hers when she had saved his life back when they had met, a week after the avalanche. He shook his head slightly; now was not the time to reminisce on dead almost-lovers.

“I like Spartacus better. I wanna call you Spartacus.” Jane said, a fiery determination in her eyes daring him to retort. The bigger part of him wanted to lash out with discipline at her insubordination; the hierarchy between parent and child was the first one a turian learned. But the better part of him remembered that Jane was a human, not a turian, and likely learned different things before now. He sighed.

“Very well, but only if you tell me what Spartacus means.” He said. He didn’t want any of his private acquaintances figuring out that Spartacus meant something ridiculous and that his ward called him that in private. Jane furrowed her fuzzy little brow and puckered her lips again, deep in thought.

“Spartacus,” Anderson interjected, “was a slave from the Roman Empire in human history. He led an army of slaves against their oppressive masters, who tortured them. Legend says that when Spartacus and his team was captured by a Roman general, the general asked who was Spartacus, and every member of Spartacus’ team claimed they were Spartacus.” Anderson smirked, clearly enjoying telling this story.

“Sometimes we tell the story of Spartacus to our children to teach them camaraderie and friendship. *We are all the hero; kill one and the rest still stand.” He said. Sparatus was taken somewhat aback. This was very similar to the scriptures on spirits he had studied in chapels as a child with his conservative parents. Perhaps turians and humans weren’t as different as he had assumed… Jane shook her head vigorously.

“Yeah! So I guess that means that if you’re Spartacus, my mom was Spartacus too.” There was a child’s logic to that statement, and Sparatus couldn’t help perking his mandibles out a bit. “Can I be Spartacus too?” Jane asked.

“Tell you what, Jane,” Sparatus said, “If you come with me, I’ll hold your hand, and we can both be Spartacus together.” Jane made a high pitched sound, like a brief version of a laugh, and ran straight to Sparatus’ leg from Anderson’s, clutching to his spur the same way she clutched to Anderson’s pant leg. Anderson smiled.

“Thank you for your assistance, captain.” Sparatus said. “I will definitely be looking into more of those stories you shared.” Jane was trying to pull herself on top of his spur. Thank the spirit between him and Jane that his spurs didn’t have any nerve endings, otherwise he’d probably be more discomforted than he was.

“Absolutely, Councilor.” Anderson said. “I recommend telling her the story of Superman, or Fa Mulan. I think she’ll love them.” Anderson nodded his head in a farewell gesture, and went on his way. Sparatus picked Jane up (she was much lighter than he thought she would be) and set her on the ground. He placed her tiny, five-fingered hand in his longer, three-fingered one.

“Come on, now. Time for all Spartacus’s to go home.” He said. Jane lifted her other hand to her forehead in a (very cute) imitation of a salute that made Spartacus’ fringe swell a little with an emotion he didn’t have time to name.

“Aye-Aye, Spartacus!” She said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From what I’ve headcanon’d about turian culture, a lia'alediy would be the sixth birthday. Because turians only have three fingers on each hand, I imagine their number system would be in base-6, so the first 6th birthday would be like the tenth birthday for a human child, but celebrated like a quinceañera or a sweet sixteen. This event is repeated each time a turian child completes six years, so there’s a celebration at 6, 12, 18, etc.
> 
> I would also like to mention that I went through a lot of trouble to make up an actual language for the turian race that’s currently in its preliminary stages, so all the words I’m using here are all following the same crazy logic and aren’t just being pulled out of a hat. %D For example, lia’alediy means six-sun-march, referencing the sixth year (sun-march referring to the passing of the seasons).


	3. A More Perfect Union

If Sparatus thought that this wasn’t going to be hard, he was sorely mistaken. Jane was more than happy to take the tour of his home, but that’s where the simplicity ended. He wasn’t in the habit of living in mansions, himself, finding it more practical to live with just the essentials in a large apartment. Of course, his idea of ‘essentials’ included a significant connection to the extranet, comm. channels in every available wall space, Palaven plants so as not to feel homesick, a conference area, and two guest resting areas with those flat, soft things called ‘beds’.

When you had to be available for contact and deliberation at any waking moment, your idea of essentials was significantly higher class than others. Jane seemed to have the biggest interest in the decorations around his walls. Aside from the holo-screens situated in at least three different walls, there was a collection of Serrated Blades marked with his colony insignia, each signed with the name of one of his ancestors.

“What do you do with these big swords?”

“Several things. Prayer, mostly.”

“Prayer to who? God? Buddha? He sounds cool!”

“I don’t pray to a person.”

“Then what?”

“I pray to spirits, usually.”

The conversation had continued like that for about half a minute before Sparatus had snapped and told her to be silent. It was difficult dealing with a child who wouldn’t stop asking questions, especially about something as sensitive as the history of the Sparatus Family, connected to the spirit of the Gothis Colony. But she didn’t stop with just asking about the blades.

“What’s this pointy thing?” That was art from Palaven. “Why doesn’t your bedroom have a bed?” Because he slept in a squatting position, or sometimes, standing up. “Why do you have so many blankets then?” Because sleeping on the hardwood floor was uncomfortable. “Where do you keep your underwear?” That was none of her business and if she would be so kind as to _stop bothering him_ and let him take her to her bedroom...

Eventually, Jane started pulling on datapads and trying to read them. “What’s this say?” She asked, but at that point Sparatus had lost his patience and plucked it out of her hands. He grabbed Jane by the collar of her shirt (the closest thing to a cowl he could grab on to without injuring her) and walked with her over to her new bedroom.

Once she was in there, she started going crazy, screeching loudly and making happy noises (at least he hoped the noises she made indicated happiness) and picking up the ‘teddy bear’ and kicking the colorful blocks everywhere. Sparatus shrugged and sighed, his energy already drained out of him. How Hannah managed such a tiny ball of insanity and questions was beyond him. He figured at least part of his frustration was cultural between humans and turians. At least that way he could get a book on human culture and pass it off as _Council Business_ and not _I Have Secretly Adopted a Human Child and I Need Serious Assistance Somebody Help_.

“Alright, Jane.” He said on an exhale, “I want you to stay in this room for the rest of the night. You can go to sleep when you like, just… try not to make too much noise.” Jane was giggling behind the large, cushy bed, her teddy bear in front of her head. She didn’t make any other indication that he heard her. He hoped the translator on her bracelet hadn’t shorted out or something…

“You can’t see me, Spartacus!” She said, giggling like a warbling _sappa_ bird. “I’m invisible!”

“I don’t care if you’re invisible Jane, I just want to know if you are going to stay in this room like I asked you to?” Sparatus was getting a headache. Though he had almost completely forgotten what he was like when he was 4, he knew full well that when a question was asked, the appropriate response was _an answer to the question._

“You’re supposed to care if I’m invisible!” Jane whined, moving her teddy bear to the side and pinching her face together again. Sparatus was going to blow a gasket.

“Well, I’m sorry, Jane, but I don’t. Now, if you can’t give me an answer, I might have to just lock the door, and I don’t want this whole situation to be worse than it already is.” If he had to lock her in her own room, there would officially be no trust between the two of them, and an untrustworthy child was more a testament of his failure to raise her properly than her insubordination. He was going to be a terrible parent.

“Fine.” She spat, throwing her teddy bear in his direction. It only made it halfway to him before its trajectory led it straight to the ground. Sparatus sighed for what felt like the 36th time, before saying a quick farewell and closing her door. He made his way to the living room couch, and slouched into it immediately, sleep overcoming him.

It was the sixth day of the Galactic Week. Vakarian and his boy had planned to come in the afternoon, after Sparatus had completed his paperwork for the day. Incidentally, it was also the day the ‘fish dog’ was slated to arrive. It was easier to handle his paperwork in early morning, when Jane was still asleep in her new room. He made some progress in regards to civilian housing for humans, and dealing with arguments regarding where Citadel Security should draw the line between limiting excessive preaching and unwarranted harassment. Then it all went _peelum_ -shaped once Jane woke up.

“Spartacus, I’m hungry! Where’s the cereal?” She had yelled. Sparatus stood up swiftly, walked downstairs to the kitchen, and found that Jane had started opening the cupboards, in search of ‘cereal’. Sparatus’ translator had glitched, leaving the word untouched, but Sparatus still filed it away for later, because apparently Jane liked it (or expected it).

“I don’t have any… _seeri-ul_ , Jane.” Sparatus said, trying to keep his temper in check. “You’ll have to try to eat what I’ve gotten for you.” He walked over to the refrigerator, closing the cupboard doors on his way, and pulled out a paper bag with various fruits and vegetables form Earth inside, one of many groceries he had discreetly ordered for her. He tried not to trip over Jane, who was scurrying around like a _kiursen,_ as he picked out some of the fruit and placed them on the counter in the center of the room.

“I don’t like bananas!” Jane said. Sparatus wasn’t sure what a ‘banana’ was, either. He remembered that it was one of the yellow fruits. Was it the long one or was it the round one? Or maybe it was the yellowish-brown one with the pointy leaves…?

“It costs a lot of money to buy one of these, Jane. You should at least try to eat them at some point.” Sparatus said.

“No! You won’t make me! When my momma comes back I’ll tell her you tried to make me eat bananas, and she’ll punch you!” She huffed, glaring at him with Hannah’s eyes. Sparatus froze for a second, feeling a chill overcome him as he remembered Hannah again, how dark it was on that blasted planet, how she had been the only reason he had survived that _unfathomably cold avalanche_ …

“Fine, Jane. What _do_ you want to eat?” He spat. Jane suddenly lit up.

“Pancakes!” She beamed, “Blueberry pancakes! Or Strawberry! Ooh! Or chocolate pancakes! Can you make me some pancakes?” Pancakes? Pancakes. Alright. Pancakes.

_What the blazes was a pancake?_

After a few minutes of Sparatus accessing human recipes for pancakes and finding out it was made with lactated liquids from the teats of a bovine mammal, he had once again felt the overwhelming desire to spit up his gizzard and pray to the spirit of the _entire galaxy_ to erase the image of eating liquid that came out of bodies. There was no way he was cooking that.

Instead, Sparatus had found a similar recipe for a breakfast called ‘oatmeal’ that was easily made without the inclusion of horrible liquids. After Jane’s breakfast was done, he put the oatmeal into a bowl, mixed it around a bit with his stirring pole, and gave it to Jane, which she slurped contentedly.

Sparatus had then tried his best to do his job with a new little bundle of life and insanity running around his legs, throwing her toys everywhere, picking up and trying to read his important datapads, and pressing every button on the remote control for the holo-screen. It was very hard to discuss community service opportunities for hanar through comm. channels when just  outside his work area, a little girl was loudly changing the channel from romantic comedies about homosexual drell to salarian children’s education involving some ‘Perry the Pyjack’ (who, he had discovered, was made of flammable material).

At some point or another, Jane had felt tired enough to fall asleep, which Sparatus took advantage of to get as much signing and reading done as possible. By the time he was done, it was 13 hours out of 20 on his clock, and the artificial sunlight of the Silver Sun Strip began to wane. Vakarian and his boy were to arrive at 14/20, and if he knew Vakarian, he’d be here at precisely that hour. If Vakarian didn’t, Sparatus would eat his own spurs.

He walked back out of his office, past the game table and toward the sleeping human child curled up on one of his couches. His initial plan was to lift her up and correct her posture. Most turian children would have instinctively begun to awaken, but he knew enough about humans to understand that humans not only slept laying down, but also had a short period of disorientation directly after waking. Sharing a bunker with a group of humans taught him at least one thing.

Hesitantly, he shook Jane a bit, and brushed the hair out of her face. She gurgled a bit, saliva dripping from her mouth. Had she been dreaming that she was feeding a child? He shook her again, and she started moaning.

“I don’t want to go to the bridge, mommy, the people there are smelly.” She slurred. He froze for a moment, and stared for only a moment. Sparatus shook her again, and she whined.

“Wake up, Jane.” He said flatly. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

She jumped off the couch and yawned. Sparatus held out his hand for her to grab onto, and walked her back to her room near the door. He opened one of the drawers for some clean clothes that the Citadel Adoption Agency had provided for her, grateful that they were there. They weren’t anything special, just simple shirts and pants, and one strangely incomplete shirt with strange metal teeth on it, with a hood and a small label for the N7 Division sewn onto it.

He dressed her up with the new clothes, though since he had no idea how to put them onto her, he had encouraged her to put it on by herself. When it came to the incomplete shirt, however, she had fiddled with the odd metal… thing at the bottom and tried to connect the two sides, but out of concern for her safety he had moved her hands away. As he was trying to straighten her shirt, a ping erupted from his omni-tool indicating that Vakarian and his boy had arrived. The timestamp said that it was 13:88. He was early.

“They’re here, Jane. Follow me.” Sparatus said, standing up. He started walking toward the door, Jane toddling behind him. He was greeted with the familiar Palaven markings of Siurus Vakarian, a little body standing a pace behind him that he couldn’t quite make out.

“Good to see you, Siurus. I must say I hadn’t expected you so soon.” Sparatus said. Vakarian walked in calmly, his little boy keeping pace. He had opened his mouth to speak…

“Hey! Your markings are blue!” Jane suddenly exclaimed. Sparatus, Vakarian, and the little one all snapped to look at her. “I thought the dinosaur-man markings were always white!” Jane continued candidly.

Sparatus and Vakarian both stared at her. Her eyes shifted between the two of them, either taking in the differences in color, or trying to memorize both their faces. She didn’t fidget, however, which Sparatus was conflicted about. On the one hand, he commended her for taking ownership of what she said and not backing down. On the other hand, _she spoke out of turn to adults_. She had a lot to learn.

“It uh, depends on where your family comes from.” A new voice said. Sparatus shifted his stare to the younger Vakarian, who stiffened and evened out his chin. “I-I mean… the… the color says what kind of family you have, and… and the shape says what colony you’re from.” He recited, nodding his head and blinking twice to indicate he was done speaking.

“Very good, Garrus.” Vakarian said slowly. He couldn’t say anything else before Jane interrupted again.

“What does blue mean, carrot?” She asked, mispronouncing Garrus’ name. Garrus stared blankly in thought, then answered.

“The… color changes depending on brightness and _tegaserruk_.” He began, faltering on the word for saturation, _digaserrik_. “The lighter your color is, the more remarkable things members of your family have done. The more tega… dega… saturated the color, the more… uh… the more…” Garrus faltered, struggling to remember.

“The more saturated the color, the more you’ve done to personally earn the markings.” Vakarian concluded. Jane’s eyes widened, and she suddenly walked closer to Garrus in two giant steps (for one of her size, at least). She got right up into his face, studying his cheeks and the cheeks of his father with her face puckered in thought.

“Where are your markings, carrot? I thought all the dinosaur-men had them.” Jane asked. Garrus clamped his mandibles tight in irritation.

“Dad, is she testing me?” He asked.

“No, Garrus.” Vakarian stated plainly. “You see, this small girl is a new species called a human. This is probably the first time she’s met someone your age.”

“I thought you said we were going to meet the Turian Councilor’s daughter.” Garrus said. Sparatus could already tell that Garrus had much more in common with Jane than he thought… or would have liked.

“You are meeting her, young man.” Sparatus said, gesturing toward her with his hand. “I’ve adopted her from the CAA a few days ago. I thought she would like to… have a friend.” Garrus and Jane stared at each other, then.

“What’s your favorite color?” She asked him, beaming. “I bet you would look really good in red!” Garrus shook his mandibles vigorously, indicating dislike or discomfort.

“No! M-my color is supposed to be blue.” Garrus said. “If it’s red then I uh, did something really bad, and--”

“Why do you only have three fingers?” She asked. Garrus’ eye ridges lifted up in surprise, and he lifted his hand to look at it. He counted his fingers carefully.

“Because I… was born like that?”

“I was born with five! See?” Jane lifted up her hand and grabbed onto Garrus’, twining her five digits into his three. Garrus pulled back a little, shocked, but Jane held fast.

“That… that’s gross! How did that--? Ew!” Garrus tried to pull his hand out of hers but she just pulled back. Soon, there was a significant battle between the small turian boy and the human girl, and Sparatus was worried for a second that they had somehow started to spar. However, soon after both children were giggling and making contented noises, and eventually Jane had pushed Garrus onto the ground. The childish wrestling was adorable.

Vakarian tapped Sparatus on the shoulder, and pointed toward the conference room, where they could hopefully keep out of the children’s earshot. Sparatus and Vakarian both walked away, leaving the two be.

“I’m sorry about Jane, Siurus.” Sparatus said once they were out of earshot. Vakarian shook his head, and spread his mandibles in a smile.

“No need for apologies, Sparatus. Kids are like that, especially Garrus. They’ll both learn, especially if we’re consistent with our lessons.” He crossed his arms amicably, and Sparatus relaxed a fraction. “I think they’ll be best friends, Sparatus.” Sparatus certainly hoped so.

Then, his omni-tool pinged again. This time, the pet store he had ordered the ‘fish dog’ from had arrived. Sparatus excused himself from his current talk to retrieve it. When he opened the door, he had been expecting a furry four-legged creature not unlike the ones he had seen in the photos. He did not expect a varren.

“Here you go, sir. One healthy adolescent varren, complete with care items and pet bed.” The chipper, female human said, thrusting a datapad into Sparatus’ hands for him to sign. He held onto it tentatively, the smile never leaving the woman’s face.

“There must be some mistake. I didn’t order—“

Suddenly, he heard Jane scream. At first he thought she was frightened by the varren, or that Garrus had pulled a bit too hard in their play-fight. Instead, Jane ran directly towards the varren, squealing happily.

“It’s a fish dog it’s a fish dog it’s a fish dog!!” She said, hugging the varren’s neck happily. Oh. So that’s a fish dog.

The varren began to rumble in happiness, and Jane started scratching it. How she knew where to scratch a varren pup to make it rumble with something other than predatory rage was a mystery for the ages.

“Can we keep him, Spartacus!? Can we can we can we!?” She said.

“You _did_ pay for all expenses of nourishment, housing, and ownership of the varren beforehand, sir.” The still-smiling human added, to nobody’s benefit. As Jane had decided that meant yes, she pulled the varren inside of the apartment, and introduced it to Garrus as ‘Fish Dog McFarty-Pants’, as Garrus tried to avoid its teeth by standing on the sofas.

It was a miracle Sparatus was able to sign the papers without falling apart on the spot. Good thing Vakarian was there to pick up the pieces if that did happen. This was going to be a long ride.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I included quite a bit about turian culture in this one, most of it is explained in-story. However, the connection between drooling and feeding babies wasn’t, so I’ll explain it here. I headcanon’d the turians as feeding their babies through regurgitating, or more specifically, keeping chewed up food in their mouth, coating it with saliva, and using it to feed their young. This is similar to the way birds feed their young chewed up worms, and how humans breastfeed their young. Turian saliva thus usually doesn’t form unless feeding a child, though both genders can still salivate if they need to.
> 
> Also, I did some math, and Mordin at the age of 4-6 would be in his early to mid-teens in salarian years. I figured it would be reasonable to assume he got an internship at an educational children’s show development facility or some such, and would thus be fiddling with Perry the Pyjack at this point. Or, we could just chalk it up to rule of funny. Whichever works!


	4. Establish Justice

Jane was five years old.

The first year Sparatus had her, he did his best to teach her. First, he taught her the legends of old. About the titans, who held the sky away from the earth. Of the heroic sisters who sacrificed their lives for their people during a meteor shower, and how the titans had rewarded them by turning them into the two moons of Palaven—the eldest and largest, Menae, and the youngest and smallest, Nanus. He had told her of each titan he could remember about—and the one Garrus was named after, who would throw the sun from the northwest, to be caught by its parent, Facinus.

Jane had gotten interested in her own kind’s history incredibly quickly, and that was when he had remembered Anderson’s suggestion of introducing her to Fa Mulan. Mulan had been a tale of honor and camaraderie similar to the story of Spartacus, about a woman who took the place of her father during a war, dressed as a man. Jane had absolutely loved it, and the next time Garrus had come over for a play date she had insisted that she was Mulan and kept throwing carrots at him. Garrus retaliated by throwing lemons at her, because he was Garrus, and Garrus threw the sun around. It probably made more sense in their heads.

Other lessons were more difficult. Jane had no care for mathematics, and was more interested in talking at every opportunity. One day she had even walked around without her translator on speaking in the galactic common tongue at him, which was a problem because he hadn’t used the galactic common in years and had forgotten most of his vocabulary. He had no idea where to start with science, and his grasp of the social sciences was quite limited.

Another issue was Jane’s discipline. Once, Sparatus had found that Jane had drawn on the walls, in a large line of red, green, and blue crayons. It was easily washable, but he had told her not to do that and she had begun to cry. He looked more closely at one of her drawings and found she had drawn a circle with sticks underneath it in red, and next to it was a blue triangle with similar sticks. When Sparatus had asked, she said that the red one was her, and the blue one was him.

It was difficult not only because she needed to understand boundaries, but he didn’t want to make her feel hurt. He had done his best to avoid hitting the child, but he did raise his voice and give her looks. Those seemed to work more for her, but it was going more gradually than he would prefer. Not to mention he had to deal with cleaning up after that varren pup.

Whenever that pup was in the same room as she was, she would squeal and jump and play and flail and he had to abandon all hope of teaching her anything. He just outright failed to keep her attention for anything that wasn’t playing. He didn’t know how to turn education into play, and that blasted _varren_ kept interrupting his thought processes and note-taking. It was a miracle he hadn’t thrown Urz (that was what Jane had decided to name him after much prodding) out one of the giant windows yet.

Not only that, but he was exhausted with his job. Because, _of course_ , Din Korlak tried his hardest to get a volus into the Spectres when none of the potentials he put forth had any experience in law enforcement other than funding them. Even the _hanar_ understood the requirements for possible Spectre candidates, sending in only able-bodied drell who had done remarkable things within their own societies.

But of course, Din was being a curmudgeonly idiot and insisting that there was racism inherent in the system. That wasn’t even mentioning that he was trying to submit possible Spectre candidates _when the Council wasn’t even petitioning for any at this time_. But Tevos was coddling him and encouraging him to edit his suggestions and reconsider. Valern was in little position to comment, no doubt deferring to the will of the dalatrasses in the Salarian Union.

It was then, in Sparatus’ most frustrated state of mind, that he took a step back from his paperwork in his office and walked upstairs to the collection of Serrated Blades. Each one had unique grooves, each retelling the history of that individual. He didn’t have all of the blades; quite a few were in the custody of his parents and other family members; but those he did he kept in pristine condition. Normally the grooves were included posthumously by artisans and particulars who had been trained to understand what each groove meant. Sparatus himself had only a passing understanding of them, but an understanding of tradition was enough for him.

Along with the Serrated Blades, there was one blade in the center that represented Sparatus himself. His had no grooves, but he had carved his name to the hilt. Normally, his would be with the others, with the hilt toward the right and the blade toward the left, following the way the sun rose in Gothis Colony; from the East to the West. But this was a special occasion.

Sparatus picked up his blade, and held onto it with two hands. He lifted the blade to his forehead, where he believed his connection to the spirits resided, and placed it on its space in the center, pointed upwards. Quietly, he bowed his head forward, and held his hands behind his back.

He was peering and poking around for the spirit of the Citadel Council, and praying to it. He didn’t have to fiddle with his blades to pray, but he liked to. It had been his favorite part of his visits to his grandfather, so it was his way of honoring him. He appealed to the spirit to rekindle his loyalty and pride in his work, and to grant him patience for the diplomats and ambassadors who were difficult to deal with.

In particular, he had asked for guidance on which of his council peers he could trust to help him with Jane. Should he speak to Valern? Salarians were notorious for their skill in educating children quickly and efficiently, no matter the species. Valern could certainly point him in the right direction for a homeschool teacher. However, Valern was notoriously weak-willed with such sensitive decisions, always deferring to the wills of the dalatrasses…

But perhaps Tevos could also help? A feminine perspective could help immensely, not to mention the experience with children Tevos had, having homeschooled her own daughters for two hundred years. However, she was also busy with her own council duties, and would probably face the same problems he was facing. Perhaps a contact of hers could assist?

“Ohhhhmmmmm…”

Sparatus jolted out of his reverie, and peered down toward the sudden voice. Jane was sitting on the ground, her legs bent in what seemed to be an awkward angle to him, her hands on her knees, palms upward, and her eyes were closed. She kept making that strange chanting sound, smiling widely. Sparatus had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

“Jane?”

“Yup?” Jane asked, looking up at him as though what she was doing was completely normal. Her vibrant green eyes reminded Sparatus that perhaps, for human culture, it was.

“What are you doing?”

“Meditating, like Mister Buddhist!” She said, then started gesticulating with her arms. “His name was Huan-Jia and momma said that his great-grandparents came from China, and because of that he would meditate.”

“I… see…?” Sparatus didn’t, actually. He didn’t even know what ‘meditating’ was. He would have to look it up later. “Why are you meditating?” Sparatus asked.

“Because you were doing the same thing Mister Buddhist was doing!” Jane said. “You were doing the same wavy arm thing with that knife that Huan-Jia did with the stick!” Jane said, as though that would explain everything. Suddenly, Sparatus understood what she meant. She had seen him begin to pray to the spirits, and she was trying to copy him.

“Jane, if you wanted to pray to the spirits with me, you could have asked.” He said. Jane tilted her head in what he could only assume was confusion.

“You said that the spirits weren’t people. So why do you pray to them?” Sparatus shook his head. This certainly wasn’t helping him reconnect with the spirit of the Citadel Council.

“How about this, Jane? You do as I do, and you stay silent throughout it, okay?” Sparatus said. Jane jumped up from the ground and shook her head up and down vigorously. Sparatus had no idea what that meant, but he hoped it was a ‘yes’. Sparatus picked up his knife from the center again, and Jane ran up to the swords and reached for a blade as well. He gripped her hand away and Jane squealed.

“Not that one, Jane. It isn’t yours.” He said.

“But I can’t reach the one you picked up!” Jane said.

“The one I picked up is _mine_. My father gave it to me when I left for the military, so it belongs to me.”

“Can I have one, then? So I can do what you do?”

“No, not until you’re of age.”

“And when is that?”

“When you are twelve and three years old.”

“But then how am I supposed to do what you do?” Sparatus looked down at her, and placed his blade in accordance with the others. He knelt down and gripped one of Jane’s small, chubby hands. He lifted it up with his, and split her four digits into two groups, to better match his three fingers.

“You use your thumb and your first two fingers.” He pulled down the last two fingers on her hand to demonstrate. He stood up and began to demonstrate for her, ignoring his blade and using his fingers. “First you bring your thumb and forefingers to the top of your head.” He demonstrated. Jane copied the motion, bowing her head just as he did and keeping her other fingers tight against her palm. “Then you reach out, sending a signal that you want a spirit to listen to you.

“Once you’ve done that, you put your hands behind your back and tilt forward, like this.” Jane followed his motions as best she could, having never done it before.

“What do I do now?”

“You talk to the spirits in your mind.”

“About what?”

“Ask them to help you connect with other people or places. Connections help keep relations peaceful and alive.” Jane didn’t say anything after that. She copied his motions again, with her fingers and thumb, and then bowed quietly. Sparatus continued to pray for a moment, before Jane started fidgeting and he decided to stop.

Sparatus was at least successful in receiving his guidance. He would speak to her in the morning. She would certainly know someone who could help him, or know someone who knew someone. Her list of contacts was great, and she would certainly keep her mouth shut about the situation. At least, he hoped Tevos would.

* * *

Shiala entered the apartment respectfully. As Sparatus expected, Tevos didn’t have time on her own to care and educate Jane. However, she did have a contact with Matriarch Benezia, one of the wisest asari matriarchs and scholars active today. Matriarch Benezia herself had a personal mission in place, but one of her acolytes had agreed to teach Sparatus’ ward in her stead.

“Thank you for coming, Shiala. You have no idea how much help this is.” Sparatus said. Shiala smiled.

“No thanks are necessary. I’m more than willing to assist Matriarch Benezia in any capacity I can. It is much more fulfilling than other occupations I have tried. Now,” She mused, “where is your ward?”

“Ah, yes. Just a moment.” Sparatus said. He brought in a deep breath, and whistled loudly. Shiala cringed a little at the volume, but made no other acknowledgment. Then suddenly, Urz the varren jumped out of the kitchen and scrambled over to Sparatus and Shiala. Shiala lashed out with a biotic stasis field, and Urz was stuck in his tracks.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Jane repeated, running down in much the same way Urz had. When she saw Urz glowing blue and floating through the air, she screamed and ran behind one of the Palavenian plants near the stairs. Sparatus shook his head.

“Jane, come here.” Jane poked her head out from behind the plant, but didn’t make any other movement. “Now, Jane.” Sparatus said. Jane ran toward Sparatus and stood next to Urz, holding her hands close and looking at Urz at every possible opportunity.

“Shiala, this is Jane.” Sparatus said. “Her mother, Systems Alliance Captain Hannah Shepard left her under my care in a human ritual. I’d… rather not get into the details.” Shiala nodded, though her gills in the back of her neck flared a little in confusion. “And uh, that is Urz. Jane’s pet.” He continued. Shiala smiled.

“I’m glad you are considering her happiness as well as her education, Councilor.” With that, she removed her stasis field from around Urz and Urz flopped onto the ground, struggling for purchase on the hardwood floors. Jane pet Urz with her hand to calm him down. How did she get so good with animals? Was it just some sort of talent she had?

“My name is Shiala, Jane.” She said, crouching down to meet Jane’s gaze. “I’m here to teach you.”

“Teach me?” Jane said.

“That’s right. You and I are going to meet four out of the six days of the galactic week, and we’re going to learn about all sorts of things. History, art, philosophy, mathematics, science…” Shiala was smiling. Jane’s eyes widened, but her eyebrows furrowed. Sparatus got worried.

“I’ll still be around to help you with your schoolwork, Jane.” Sparatus said, trying to calm her nerves. “But I need to leave the house sometimes, and I can’t teach you and work at the same time anymore. You understand.”

Jane started to cry. Evidently, she did not understand at all. Sparatus was taken aback, and the varren pup quickly started sniffing at Jane vehemently and howling in distress. Shiala stayed kneeling, but looked up at Sparatus with worry. Sparatus tensed, not knowing what was happening.

“Jane, what’s wrong?” Sparatus asked, kneeling down himself. Jane continued to cry, wailing and turning red in the face. She rubbed her fists against her eyes, trying to wipe away the water that would come out when she was truly upset.

“Is—she… she is… is she…” She hiccupped. Shiala looked concerned. Was Jane afraid of the asari somehow? That made little sense… “Is she here to be my… my momma?” She finally choked out. Sparatus’ mandibles twitched in surprise, and Shiala’s eyebrows lifted.

“No, no of course not, Jane. Why would you think that?” Shiala said comfortingly. Jane continued to sniffle.

“Be-because… yesterday when, when Spartacus said I could keep momma alive with the spirits, I, I asked them to… to bring momma back and…” she sniffed, pausing a significant amount of time. Sparatus still didn’t understand. The spirits couldn’t change the world or grant wishes, just help confirm emotions or clear your thoughts…

“Why do you think I would replace your mother, Jane?” Shiala asked, glancing at Sparatus every once in a while.

“Because, because my momma would teach me things all the time, and she was a girl like you are, and and…” Sparatus lifted an arm to reach for her shoulder. It was one of the most intimate gestures he could give to a child, similar to what he had seen some humans doing back on that planet when he met Hannah, embracing each other with both arms… turians didn’t do that, but he hoped the sentiment would show regardless.

“Your mother can’t come visit you, Jane.” Sparatus said. “She’s dead. She can’t come back.”

“Does… does my momma still love me?” She asked. Sparatus didn’t know what to say. When a person died they just stayed dead. He was only just learning about some human beliefs, such as ghosts. It didn’t make a lick of sense to him, but he couldn’t say that Jane’s mother didn’t love her.

“Jane, your mother loved you so much that she sent you to be with someone she trusts. If she could, I know she would love you more and more every day.” Shiala explained. Jane said nothing, so Shiala continued. “I’m not here to be your mother, Jane. I’m just here to be your teacher. We don’t have to be friends if you don’t want to be.”

“But… but momma said I should be nice with everyone I can.” Jane said, sniffing.

“Then honor her wishes and be as kind as you can. Just like I am.” Sparatus said. Jane looked at him and suddenly ran into his neck, gripping it as though she was going to snap his neck with her thinning arms. She cried into his neck, and Sparatus hadn’t a clue what to do. Shiala gripped his hand and motioned for him to rub her back, not saying a word.

When Jane felt better, he washed her face and sat in to her first lesson with Shiala. Once that was done, Shiala told Sparatus that she was in competent, caring hands, and to never doubt himself about raising a good girl. Sparatus thanked her for the sentiment and left to help Jane prepare for bed. Sparatus stopped just before leaving her bedroom, gazing at her, cuddled up with Urz and gripping tightly against Teddy the Terminator (the same bear she had when she had first slept there one year ago). Sparatus didn’t realize he was smiling until later.


	5. Insure Domestic Tranquility

The first time Sparatus had ever officially panicked was when Jane was seven years old. Garrus was going to have his _lia’alediy_ celebration, but Jane couldn’t go. No matter how many times he explained it to her—that he couldn’t be seen outside his home with a human child, that his reputation as a Councilor might be sullied, that the political reaction to a human attending a turian celebration might foster even more hostility between species. But she wouldn’t hear it. She wanted to be there for his celebration, even if it was a public celebration, and not a private one like the one he had held for her own _lia’alediy_.

She had screamed and punched him. Thankfully, Sparatus’ lessons actually meant something to her, and they both went to the small sparring ring for the first time. She cried and hit him as much as she could, accusing him of keeping a ‘secret daughter’ and saying she hated him. He had done his best to keep his own anger from boiling over and seriously hurting her. He had failed, and injured her shoulder, leaving it bleeding profusely.

He called over his private doctor immediately and made him swear not to spread the news around. He had come swiftly, and helped stop the bleeding as quickly as he could, but he was still quite surprised at the human in his household (and the varren. Nobody ever ignores the stinking varren hanging around giving weird looks). Sparatus had called off most of his meetings that week, citing exhaustion as a health reason and looking around for a private, _human_ doctor for Jane.

The second time he had panicked was when Jane was nine. She had been feeling ill around her abdominal area for a few days, and then all of a sudden she screamed. Sparatus had ran into the bathroom, and he found that Jane was bleeding from her… _unmentionable_ area. There was absolutely no explanation for it, and Sparatus scrambled for the same new doctor he had looked around for two years prior.

Doctor Michel was kind and understanding, and had a quiet little clinic down in the Tayseri Ward not far from the C-Sec Academy. When she came over, Dr. Michel explained that Jane was going through human adolescence, and that human females in particular shed the internal uterine lining used to prepare for childbirth every month or so, for about a week. Sparatus had all but fainted at this explanation, at once marveling that a human female could lose so much blood and not die of blood loss and shoving as many nuts and bones into his gizzard as he could to keep from vomiting. Again.

It had been a long time since then, however, and now Jane was eleven years old. She was soon to reach the age of twelve, and she would celebrate her second _lia’alediy_ soon. It was most likely to be a private celebration again, with only those he trusted with the secret attending; Shiala, Dr. Michel, Irilisas Narem (his secretary, and the woman who alerted him to the situation with Jane all those years ago), and the Vakarian family. Jane had hit off very easily with Solana Vakarian, despite the age gap giving So a predictable air of haughtiness and intimidation. Jane hadn’t been fazed, and merely marveled at how short So’s fringe was in comparison to her younger brother’s. And at how she was at least one head taller than she was.

Jane was eating her breakfast—a nice plate of thin meat strips called ‘bacon’ and some unfertilized eggs from a species of poultry (she had given the orange fruit he had included to Urz)—when the topic of gifts came up. One of Shiala’s xeno-anthropology lessons taught Jane that at human celebrations, much of the festivities included dressing up, engaging in rituals such as slicing pastries or lighting candles, and exchanging gifts. Jane had asked Sparatus if he was going to give her a gift this time. Normally at turian celebrations, dancing and singing took place, as well as copious amounts of binging on sweet foods and alcohol (for those of legal drinking age).

Sparatus arranged his fingers in a steeple formation, a form of body language he had picked up from the salarians years ago. He had considered it good policy to adopt body language of other cultures that suited him. In particular, he had adopted the finger-steeple (denoting thought) from the salarians, the ramrod-straight observance (denoting courtesy and curiosity) from the asari, and the air-quotes (denoting disbelief or sarcasm) from the humans.

“That depends on what you would like to receive.” Sparatus responded. Jane continued to quietly munch her breakfast, staring into her eggs as though the ghosts of the chicken abortions would assist her. Sparatus was personally terrified of the idea—when someone died they should stay dead, their memories living on through the actions of their comrades and family members. But Jane had found a significant amount of comfort in the idea of individuals continuing to live after they died, so Sparatus indulged her.

When consulting Shiala about it, she had said that humans as a species were individualistic and ambitious, and most of their afterlife beliefs included some form of continuing the work they did in life personally. Some believed that they were reborn to another body, similar to the salarian Wheel of Life, while others believed that a soul distinct from the body would separate from the dead person and wander unseen, not unlike the traditional drell polytheism. Believing in ghosts helped Jane come to terms with the death of her mother, Shiala explained.

“I don’t really think I want anything.” Jane said. Sparatus nodded.

“Then I don’t think I could get you a gift.” Quiet fell between them again. Sparatus glanced down at his datapad filled with appeals, letters, and the occasional spam message about the Enkindlers. None of them really felt important right now, though.

“Shiala says that a gift doesn’t have to be an object.”  Jane said. “The asari share gifts too, and Shiala said gifts can be thoughts or stories too.”

“Would you like me to tell you a story?” Sparatus asked.

“Well, not really… I mean…” Jane set her fork down and stared so intently at her breakfast that Sparatus almost thought she was going to start shooting lasers through her eyes. He waited patiently, switching his datapad off for the moment. He had a feeling this was important.

“What was she like?” Jane asked. Sparatus stared back at her, and blinked slowly.  He could already feel his heart rate speed up. He hoped that she wasn’t talking about who he thought she was talking about. He didn’t think he could keep his emotions in check telling her about that person. This, right now, was going to be the third time Sparatus panicked.

“What… was who like?” He asked. Jane stared at him evenly for a moment, but then remembered her lessons about the familial hierarchy and lowered her gaze.

“My mom. Hannah Shepard.” Jane said. Sparatus and Jane sat there quietly for a moment. Then he shifted and turned on his omni-tool, calling Irilisas. He told her to answer all his calls for him to the best of her ability and make appointments for him if it was absolutely necessary for them to speak to him. This situation required his full attention, especially if he was going to avoid panicking.

“Well, there are a lot of things that I don’t know about her that I wish I did.” Sparatus began. Jane set her eating utensils down (a pair of sticks meant for dexterous, five-fingered hands that could pick up clumps of food if used correctly, a remnant of her time as ‘Mulan’ all those years ago) and looked at him eagerly. Defiant to his authority, begging to hear even _one thing_ about the woman whose eyes she had inherited.

Sparatus decided to begin with the day he met her.

* * *

Sparatus landed in Vancouver, Canada, one of three sections of the United North American States. The UNAS were on the northern hemisphere, western quadrant, and Vancouver was only one of several state capitals. They had opted to hold their meeting in one of their quiet mountain residences, for maximum privacy. The  Citadel Council had landed there to speak with current UNAS President Catherine Sanhueza, the Chinese People’s Federation President Liu Ni-Lang, and the European Union’s Representative Carlene Thomson.

_Sounds boring._

Sparatus met Hannah Shepard for the first time that day. She was the captain of the SSV Diamond Rock at the time, the Alliance frigate assigned to the safety of Representative Thomson. There had been two other frigates assigned to the other leaders, the SSV Jieting for President Liu, and SSV Little Bighorn for President Sanhueza. She spoke to him and gave him information on the history of Europe, about the divisions between countries and nations, about the intricate patterns of language cobbled together from alternating periods of isolation and trade.

_What did she look like?_

Her hair was very light, a shade of fine yellow. She had pale skin, and she had explained to him that the pale skin was due to a mixed-race English and Irish genetic history. She was tall even for a human, her forehead reaching the bridge of his nose when normally humans wouldn’t even go past his cowl unless propped up. Hannah also had a very ugly and noticeable scar across her cheek, the details of which he wouldn’t figure out until later.

Sparatus failed to mention what color Hannah’s eyes were.

The first few days had been simple routine. The Council was in charge of integrating the human governments with the Citadel Species, in order to avoid further complications or wars. President Sanhueza was very understanding of the entire situation, eager to integrate. President Liu was less amenable, concerned for humanity’s place among the Citadel species and asking difficult questions about what the species ambassadors did and who to suggest for a human ambassador. Representative Thomson was concerned about the monetary shift from the human currencies—pesos, dollars, yen, euros, pounds—and the unified galactic credit, and that led to a hearty discussion of the volus and their history among the Citadel, exchange rates…

_Okay._

He hadn’t really gotten to know about Hannah until later that week. The Systems Alliance had been called to help negotiate what the ‘face’ of humanity would be towards the rest of the galaxy. That day, Hannah had quipped that they were going to decide what humanity’s ‘hat’ was going to be. Sparatus’ questions led to Hannah quickly describing the human idea of stereotypes as hats with labels on them, telling the world what to expect from someone.

It was during one of these secluded meetings that a terrorist organization attacked. A group of special-ops marines guarding the outer perimeter had been dealing with a human-supremacist group known only as ‘Cerberus’. The traitorous marines guarding the perimeter from SSV Jieting sabotaged all of the systems in the building and held the Citadel Council and the human leaders at gunpoint.

_But you shot them, right?_

Sparatus’ time in the military had taught him that shooting people wasn’t always the answer. Hannah Shepard clearly understood that as well, initiating an interesting conversation, and advised everyone there that the best course of action was to follow the terrorists for now. Sparatus had thought she was crazy for suggesting _surrender_ , but a stern look in Hannah’s eyes instilled equality of rank into Sparatus, and he shut his mouth.

The councilmembers and the human leaders all walked out of the room with the Cerberus traitors. Captain Hannah Shepard of Diamond Rock, Captain Kawacatoose Cohen of Little Bighorn, President Catherine Sanhueza, President Liu Ni-Lang, Representative Carlene Thomson, Councilor Datharn Sparatus, Councilor Derenji Valern, and Councilor Ilinra Tevos. They were all standing in a clump with their hands behind their heads, following the traitors to the SSV Jieting. All of the non-Cerberus affiliated crewmen had been killed.

_So what happened?_

Things went sideways. Hannah had suddenly and without warning attacked the Cerberus traitors, wrestling a gun from one of them. Sparatus himself worked on his ten years of military experience and toppled a few of the flunkies quickly and painlessly while Cohen did similarly. The Presidents, Valern, and the rest all just cowered and huddled together, Tevos putting a biotic barrier around all of the non-combatants. Soon, the group of them fled from the scene in a random direction, just wanting to get away from the danger long enough to make sense of what was happening.

And then one of the traitors had picked up an extremely potent missile launcher and shot it straight at one of the higher mountain peaks. Suddenly, there was an avalanche of snow, blanketing his vision and nearly blinding him with its white coloring. Sparatus wasn’t a fan of cold weather in the first place, and before Vancouver he had never been in an area so cold he could see his own breath forming in front of him. To see that unrelenting cold hurtling straight at him was terrifying.

He had forgotten the specifics of what happened after that. He remembered screaming, running so hard that he couldn’t breathe anymore. He remembered seeing a large cabin off in the distance. He remembered Tevos shoving everyone into a biotic bubble and literally rolling it down the mountain in a panic, waving her arms frantically to keep the motion, exhausting herself.

He remembered shooting the lock to the door of the cabin when it was in range, scrambling out of the bubble. Lifting Tevos, who had fainted from the strain, throwing her into the cabin. The insurmountable blanket of snow coming closer and closer until it almost dominated his vision. Hannah grabbing his hands and shoving him inside with similar force to the way he rescued Tevos. Shutting the door with a loud thud, the snow blanketing over the darkened walls.

A deadly silence fell over the group after the roar of the avalanche passed. Sparatus remembered feeling extremely cold, colder than he had ever felt before. He wanted to sink his head as low as he could into his cowl, and lifting one of his legs up in an attempt to keep body heat. Valern was shivering like a leaf in the wind, Tevos was breathing deeply in unconsciousness, Presidents Liu and Sanhueza were doing breathing exercises, and Representative Thomson was trying to find the light switch.

Hannah was calm throughout the ordeal, and took command immediately. She ordered Valern to use one of his ‘orange glove things’ to illuminate the area. Valern’s omni-tool did a good job of making the place bright and helping everyone get their bearings. From the scans he ran, there was an electrical generator nearby that they could use. It was a quick fix for Valern, and pretty soon all eight of the inhabitants were in a fully-lighted room, but still freezing. It would take a while for heating to restart.

Blankets were procured from a nearby bedspread. The entirety of the cabin seemed to be out of use for the moment, but well-stocked and well-decorated. Sparatus never found out who that house belonged to, but at the time he was more concerned with keeping warm.

_Where did you sleep?_

Sparatus was more than happy to sleep in the corner so long as he had at least a pillow or something to support his heels. However, the humans had started to bicker over the bedding. There were only two available, and President Sanhueza was adamant about not sleeping with ‘slimy fish-aliens’. Valern took offense, a verbal fight broke out, Captain Cohen stopped it, it was all a mess and Sparatus just wanted to go to sleep and stop being cold as a corpse.

A number of complications rose up throughout the situation. Thankfully, there was a large collection of neutral-chirality emergency rations tucked away underneath some of the floorboards, so Sparatus was able to stave off starvation at the very least. Hannah happily ate whatever the other humans would not, Tevos munched on energy bars like a madwoman. Eating the emergency rations for one made the food last longer in his case, but levo-food had started to run short around the third galactic, six-day week.

People had begun to get to know each other even more closely, sharing blankets willingly rather than begrudgingly, brewing a human drink known as ‘hot chocolate’ for a week straight before they had run out of a key ingredient, and Tevos happily demonstrating her biotic abilities for Thomson. They had shared stories as time went on. Liu had once almost committed suicide by falling off a bridge, and Cohen had been a teacher of the Cree language for ten years before he joined the military during the siege of Shanxi. Sanhueza had revealed she had a talent for art, and had begun to practice on scraps of paper found next to some printers. Valern had, at one point, dreamt he had attended a singing-practice-slash-political-meeting with the dalatrasses while wearing pink polka-dotted shorts and nothing else. It was one of the few times the entire grouped roared with laughter.

Sparatus learned on the third week that Hannah held no animosity towards the turians for their attack on Shanxi, and was willing to give them all a second chance. He remembered them slowly getting closer as friends, slowly learning about each other’s cultures. He remembered trading war stories with her, how he had taken down smuggling rings and pirate bands in the military, how she had grown up in poverty from one of many sprawling metropolises on Earth. How Hannah was going to away on maternity leave once they were rescued, due to her pregnancy.

One day, Hannah asked Sparatus what they would do when food became scarce. Sparatus took her into private quarters in order to speak more freely, and Hannah had begun to sputter with emotion. Sparatus had comforted her as best he could. Hannah had been worried about hurting her baby, or dying before it could come to term. She had been trying for a long time with her husband for that child.

Sparatus didn’t tell Jane about the head-bumping. He didn’t tell her about how he opened his heart to her that night and offered her solace, comfort, and companionship akin to igniting the flame of a lovers-spirit. He didn’t tell her about how Hannah accepted his comfort but not his advances, how she told him she would have kissed him in another time, in another life. He didn’t tell her about how he fell in love with Captain Hannah Shepard but had to put it aside for the greater good.

Jane inferred that the child Hannah was carrying was her quite easily, however. Sparatus finished his story with the rescue by Alliance forces, and returning to regular duties. Jane nodded her head, looking back at her abandoned breakfast. It had grown cold and tasteless minutes ago, and Urz had begun whining to get their attention. Probably hungry. Urz was _always_ hungry.

“Your mother was a brave, virtuous woman, Jane. You should be proud of what she was able to do for the sake of Galactic Peace.” Sparatus concluded, placing a hand on her shoulder. “If it weren’t for her, I might be either dead, or a prisoner of war.” Jane looked up to him, and smiled a very, very sad smile. Sparatus spread his mandibles wide enough to bare his side-teeth, happy to be able to look into Hannah’s green eyes once more.

The rest of the day went by quietly, shenanigans with Urz notwithstanding. That night, Sparatus and Jane appealed together to the spirits. He taught her the proper ceremony for calling a spirit into being, just as his grandfather had taught him years ago—similar to regular appeals, but with candles lit to number the members of the spirit. With their hands together and a candle burning bright among the swords, they called upon the Ghost of Hannah Shepard and included her in the spirit of their family.

Jane said it was the best gift she could have ever hoped for.


	6. Provide for the Common Defense

After Sparatus had told Jane about her mother, he had assumed things might have gone a bit smoother. But if anything, things got worse. Jane’s behavior was becoming erratic, and she was more likely to be quiet and distant than she ever was as a child. There were time when she would get the same excitement and fire in her eyes that she did when she was younger, usually when it came to learning something interesting about humans on the news, or when it came to playing with Urz. But it was rare, and more often than not Jane would just stay inside her room.

Sparatus had begun to get the distinct impression that Jane was hiding something from him. Even after talking to his trusted acquaintances about it, he didn’t really get much of an answer. Dr. Michel insisted that she wasn’t a psychologist, but that this sort of behavior was typical of human females around puberty. Mostly, she had said it manifested as an increased desire to hide their body and the changes it was going through, such as the additional height and development of breasts.

Vakarian said that perhaps what Jane needed was a change of pace. He suggested that she had been living in the apartment for most of her life and had probably gotten bored of it. There were two options for fixing it that he could see. One; they could rearrange the apartment entirely and change its style, coloring, bedding, organization of important objects etc. Two; they could let Jane out of the apartment for a day at increasing intervals for a while.

Oddly, Shiala had offered little advice other than an encouragement to get Jane out of the house. Discussion with Jane herself about the idea was met with an explosion of happiness and energy that he hadn’t seen in a while. Sparatus hoped that he wouldn’t regret it.

Today was the day that Garrus would celebrate his second _lia_ , and Shiala had successfully determined a way for Jane to participate in it publicly. Shiala would go with Jane and Garrus to the Armax Arsenal Junior Arena, while Sparatus would stay behind. It was the best way to get Jane out of the house for the day, and it ensured that Sparatus wouldn’t get any suspicion drawn his way as well.

Nobody would question a turian going to a public shooting range for his twelfth birthday, and nobody would question an asari taking care of a human child—asari were commonly chosen to be babysitters by human parents. Shiala had made certain they all had their stories straight—Shiala was there taking care of Garrus’ first lesson in combat, and Jane had to come along because of a prior engagement with a human colleague.

Of course, Sparatus decided it was a great opportunity to focus on his work as a Councilor. Irilisas was more than happy to give him call number after call number in a neatly prioritized order. Officially, it was so that Sparatus could do his job without distraction for once. Privately, it was to keep his mind off of worrying himself silly over Jane. She could take care of herself, he had nothing to worry about. Besides, she knew how to spar, she could…

“This is an outrage!” Human ambassador Donnel Udina cried, shaking his fist and bringing Sparatus back to the present. “You cannot simply deny all involvement with the protection of our colonies’ supplies! I know for a fact that the Council is obligated to extend defenses out to all trade routes between Council Member and Client species colonies!”

“Yes, Ambassador, I _know_. But the Council cannot extend any influence over the trade routes outside of its jurisdiction in Citadel Space. In addition, the monetary cost of turian defenses for the routes to Eden Prime would be greater not only because of the colonial placement but also the levo-amino based proteins of its fauna. How do you expect turian defenses to be maintained when we can’t even eat anything there?”

“That is irrelevant; send in rations from your other colonies!”

“That is what I was talking about, ambassador. We would have to divide our supplies even further than they are divided now, and I’m not sure you’ve noticed but dextro-amino acids are a _distinct_ _minority_ among garden worlds. Unless you expect us to start chewing on _moss_ from the aging warships of the Quarian Flotilla, then the cost-to-demand ratio will be too steep to maintain without serious ramifications.”

“So, what, you want us to defend our own ships from batarian pirates? You know as well as I do that the Terminus Systems are lawless—we might not have the necessary firepower to defend ourselves from them! Who knows what sorts of illegal tech they might be hiding?”

“Then you should not have founded a colony on the border to the Terminus Systems. If you want to protect your colony and its trade routes so badly then you should defend them yourself. This conversation is over. Good day, Ambassador.” Sparatus said, cutting the feed.

Idiot. If Sparatus were still in the habit of cursing like a sailor, he had quite a few names he could say about him (and the majority he would have liked to say to his face). As it stood, a job as a councilmember tended to be severely jeopardized when inappropriate language was used. And besides, he shouldn’t waste his breath or his time on that dirt-bag anyway. He had more pressing concerns than him.

Like how Jane had been out of the house all day doing who knows what with Garrus. He shook his head, trying to expel the imagined worst-case scenarios out of his head. He could deal with Jane getting picked on by humans, she just had to reconnect with the spirit between them to fix something like that. He could probably deal with Jane not liking the area outside and wanting to remain inside forever; that would just need time to adjust. He could probably deal with Jane absolutely loving the outside world and never wanting to go home ever again and maybe even running away but that would never happen, would it?

Oddly enough, the out-and-out worst case scenario he had come up with came right out of that stupid old soap opera about homosexual drell that Jane had been playing reruns of since she had begun to bleed profusely every month. She had some strange fascination with it and one time she had asked him what it was like to kiss but he couldn’t answer that because he didn’t have lips and thus had never kissed before but…

What if Jane tried to kiss _Garrus_ okay this train of thought needs to stop. Sparatus tapped in for his meal break and grabbed a few datapads to read (and possibly sign). A quickly made sandwich fit his needs for the day, and with that he turned on the television to watch some news channels. The datapads and spicy sandwich were almost enough to put him to sleep, if it weren’t for the C-Sec warning alarms just outside.

Sparatus continued by through the rest of his day in a blur. He felt a surge of pride at how much he was getting done. The last time he had made so much progress was probably never. He was still in the middle of typing up his response to a group of human religious missionaries who wanted to open up a house of worship somewhere in the Wards to do something called ‘baptisms’ in a more private context when his omni-tool began to beep, signifying a call from Vakarian.

It took him a few seconds before he realized that Vakarian only ever called him from his omni-tool if it was a private, sensitive matter he wished to discuss. That is to say, Vakarian needed to talk to Sparatus about Jane. That did not bode well.

“Sparatus.” Vakarian said when he opened the comm link.

“Ah, Siurus. Is something wrong?”

 “Well… Something happened today. It’s about Jane.” Sparatus froze for a moment, waiting patiently. He wanted to throw up again. Curse his penchant for nausea.

“It… also involves Garrus.” Vakarian said slowly. “Jane was at the Armax Arena with him earlier when… well, the situation got out of control.”

Oh holy spirits of Palaven _did Jane kiss Garrus he was going to murder her_.

“Ahhh, I’m getting too old to drag this out more than I need to. Datharn, did you know that Jane was a biotic?”

No. No, Sparatus did _not_ know that Jane was a biotic. Nothing of the sort ever came up in conversation, or…

“How did you find out?”

“That’s where the news becomes less than pleasant.” Vakarian stopped there for a moment, staring downward. Sparatus’ mandibles twitched in discomfort.

“Garrus and Jane got into a fight and Jane picked him up biotically. Shot him straight to the ceiling. If that wasn’t enough, he fell from ceiling height afterward. Shattered the bones in his arm and one of his spurs is dangerously close to falling off.”

Sparatus stopped for a moment. That… that didn’t make any sense. Jane couldn’t have been a biotic in the first place, and even if she were, he doubted she had the metabolism to lift anyone to the ceiling like that. But then it made sense. The hiding, the mood swings, the reluctance to speak to anyone about anything, let alone him… The silence Shiala had exerted when he asked what she thought about Jane’s condition…

But why would she have gotten in a fight with Garrus? That didn’t make much sense. From what he could tell when observing the two, they got along quite well. He didn’t know what to feel about that. Worry that Jane had lashed out against the only friend that was around the same age as her? Or happiness that Jane was no longer in danger of kissing a turian?

“What about Jane? How is she… reacting, to all this?” Vakarian shook his mandibles in dissent.

“She barely reacted before she fainted from the exertion. Shiala’s with her and Garrus right now. Shiala thinks it would be a good idea for you to come over and be there when she wakes up. We’re in Michel’s clinic.”

“I’m on my way.” Sparatus said tersely as he closed the comm. He lifted himself up so swiftly he almost tipped his chair over. He barely took note of the chair anyway, scrambling to get outdoor boots on and chipping his shoulder through the doorways at every corner. His heart was pounding and his usual nausea was starting to flare up again. Why did Jane always find ways to make his gizzard churn? It’s like she had some innate talent for it.

It was all he could do to keep himself from puking on the spot inside the cab while it drove on auto-pilot toward Michel’s clinic. If this kept up, he’d need to start taking nausea medication. Or something. Spirits grant his mind clarity in this time of trial…

* * *

“I never meant to hurt him…”

Sparatus turned to face Jane in the backseat. Jane didn’t move. Sparatus sighed and stared straight ahead as the cab flew itself back to his private quarters. Jane had woken up soon after he had arrived, and Shiala thought it better to wait until they were back in the apartment before offering any explanations.

“I understand that you didn’t mean to do such a thing Jane, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that you did it. You made a mistake, now own up to it.”

“But I didn’t…” Jane started, lifting her head to face him. Then she stopped and scrunched her face in discomfort, just like she had done when she was younger. She steeled it shortly thereafter. “I understand.”

“Good” Sparatus said. Silence hung between them again and Sparatus couldn’t help but shake his head. This was all his fault. He should have known Jane wasn’t ready to go out yet. He should have seen the signs that Jane was a latent biotic. He could have prevented this entire accident if only he had—

“He probably hates me now.” Jane whispered. Sparatus twisted back immediately, and stared at her. Shiala did likewise, though in a much more graceful way. Jane didn’t look up.

Sparatus turned back to look towards the window. No matter what explanations Jane had, Garrus had been in terrible shape when he saw him. He was unconscious in the hospital bed, his arm was bleeding profusely even with the bandages, and the mesh keeping his spur together was running out rapidly. Garrus was at risk of losing his balance completely if that spur was lost, and if he _did_ try to get a clone-graft replacement of it then it would probably cost a fortune.

“Well, perhaps this would not have happened if you had only told me about your biotic abilities beforehand.”

“But—“

“No. Buts. Young lady.” Sparatus spat. Jane stopped immediately, and his glare was almost palpable. Shiala gently rested a hand on his shoulder and blinked to encourage calm. Sparatus shifted in his chair. Now was not the time to talk about this.

The walk back to his apartment was deathly quiet, almost silent save for their footsteps. Once they were back in, Sparatus stood in the sitting area closest to the door and on the other side of the fireplace.

“Well, Jane? What do you have to say for yourself?” She didn’t move past the fireplace. Shiala spoke up instead, walking closely and adopting a ramrod-straight posture.

“Sparatus, I understand why you are upset. But perhaps you should consider this from her position.”

“I would do that better if I knew what her position was, Shiala. Now, Jane. Are you going to tell me why you kept your biotic abilities a secret from me, or am I going to have to discipline you for what you’ve done?” Jane looked up, an angry fire in her eyes. Figures that one of the few times her personality shone through, it was when he was asking for justification.

“I kept them a secret because I knew you wouldn’t like me anymore if you knew.” She said.

“Jane that makes absolutely no sense. Why would you think I wouldn’t like you anymore if you had biotic abilities? I’m your fath… I’m your _guardian_ for crying out loud.”

“You only like me because I remind you of my mom!” Jane shrieked. Then she clamped her hands over her mouth, as though trying to pull back the words she had just spoken. Sparatus stiffened slightly, but his mandibles twitched. His eyes narrowed.

 “What was that? Perhaps you would like to say that again?” Shiala kept switching her gaze between the two, concern in her eyes. Whether for him or for her, Sparatus was not certain.

“I… I know what my mom looks like, Sparatus. It’s not like I can’t use the extranet.” Jane began, slowly. “She looks almost totally similar to me. More like she’s my sister than my mom.” She closed her eyes. “I know that our eyes are practically the same, too.” Sparatus closed his eyes and folded his arms. Jane took in a shuddering breath.

“I know what you tried to do, _Sparatus_. My mom was married to my dad and you fell in love with her anyway.” Jane’s voice quickened pace, and she sounded more and more accusatory as she went on.

“I know what the law is when a human becomes orphaned. You had no _right_ , Sparatus. You could have let me go to a human family instead. But you decided to _steal_ me away from whatever normal life I could have had, because you _still_ want to bang my mom even when she’s dead!”

“I’ve heard enough!” Sparatus spat, spreading his mandibles and opening his mouth wide in an unconscious gesture of dominance. Jane clenched her teeth. Sparatus began to walk toward her, and Shiala started to back away.

“I’m not done yet you _monster_. I don’t care how you try to justify it, but I know what you are! You’re a _pervert_ and you only took me in because you wanted to use me as some sort of shrine to remember my mom by! Hell for all I know when I’m old enough you’re going to try to screw _me_! Are you going to shove that under the rug as ‘turian culture’ too, you abusive—“

“There isn’t a single thing you have just said that is in _any way_ the truth, Jane! Now stop talking—“

“Or what? You’ll beat me within an inch of my life and claim that it’s just ‘turian culture’? You’ll let me cry my eyes out without throwing even an inch of sympathy my way? You’ll keep me locked up in your stupid _prison_ and keep me as some sort of trophy to remind you of her!? I don’t think so! You’re not my _father_ , you have no—“

Sparatus slapped her. _Hard_. Hard enough that she would have stumbled to the floor if she wasn’t half-expecting it. Jane retaliated by jumping at him, and her newly-discovered biotics flared up again. Sparatus was pushed across the room, and the pain made the world go blurry for a moment, but Jane was young and she didn’t have the kind of implants for any sustained biotics. Sparatus shoved her back and was about to keep going when suddenly he couldn’t move at all.

“Enough, both of you!” Shiala exclaimed from back at the door. Jane and Sparatus were frozen in place, Jane locked in an almost-punch, Sparatus straightening up from a crouch. “Jane, I know you feel scared, and you’re worried about a lot of things right now, but you must keep your calm for as long as you can. And Sparatus, I understand that this is all unexpected, but lashing out is not the way to handle this situation. Now I expect you both to stay calm when I release you, and if you won’t, I will not hesitate to place you both in stasis again.”

With that, Shiala released them both. Sparatus’ head spun with more nausea, and he clutched his gizzard to try and still its churning. Jane looked dizzy herself. Sparatus straightened up and looked down at her, but Jane just glared at the floor.

“Well?” Shiala said, looking at Jane.

“What do you want from me, Shiala?” Jane asked. “I said everything that was on my mind! You know how I feel about this.”

“Perhaps I know better than you do, Jane, because I distinctly remember you were worried that you would lose Sparatus’ favor if you weren’t like your mother. You obviously have some affection toward him.”

“You ever heard of a thing called Stockholm Syndrome?” Jane quipped. Shiala glared at her, and Jane sighed.

 “Jane.” Sparatus said. She didn’t move. “Jane, look to the speaker when you’re spoken to.” Jane still didn’t move. Sparatus exhaled through his nose and rubbed his forehead, sending an improvised prayer for clarity and calm.

“Jane, you don’t _know_ why I adopted you. Why would you just jump to that sort of conclusion without any sort of confirmation?” Jane didn’t respond. So, that’s how she was going to play it, huh?

Sparatus immediately left, and rushed up the stairs. Shiala called to him, warning evident in her voice, but he ignored her. He all but ran to his room, and quickly sifted through the datapads he had kept from that fateful month, thirteen years ago. When he found it, he walked straight back down. Jane had only moved to sit down on the couch near the bar, facing the holo-screen with folded arms. Shiala stood to the side, her arms also crossed. Sparatus marched to Jane, and slapped that datapad onto her lap, perhaps with more force than was necessary.

“What’s this supposed to be?” Jane spat.

“Your mother’s Last Will and Testament. If you know as much as you think about human customs, then you know the significance of this document.” Sparatus said. Jane gingerly picked it up after a short pause, and read through it. It took a moment, but when she had read who Hannah had bequeathed her daughter to she stopped, and read it over again.

“Your mother left you in my care because she trusted me, Jane. In return I have respected her wishes and raised you the best I could.” Sparatus folded his arms behind him, and closed his eyes tightly.

“And now I see that I might not have been approaching this correctly. If you would just tell me what you think I am lacking as your guardian, I’d be happy to provide it for you.” Jane looked straight at him, their green eyes locked. Shiala began to smirk in the corner of Sparatus’ eye.

“I… I don’t…” Jane said, tears in her eyes as she looked away. Shiala stepped forward, and coughed to draw their attention.

“I’d be more than willing to teach Jane how to command her biotics. The sparring room should be more than adequate for biotic combat training.” She said.

“Well yeah, that would be great but…” Jane started. “I guess what I really want are more… ugh, it sounds stupid even in my head. Never mind.”

“Jane…” Sparatus walked toward her, and knelt down to stay at eye level with her. Jane looked him, and the line her tears traced were all too noticeable. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need.” Jane looked down, sniffling.

“I just… I want to get _out_ of this house. I know you can’t go out with me because of political _nonsense_ and dumb turian racists shrieking and hollering at you for it but I _hate_ this place and I don’t want to be cramped up in here forever and I want to learn how to shoot a gun and I want to go to the military when I’m fifteen but I probably can’t because I was _born_ _wrong_ and…”

Sparatus placed a timid hand on Jane’s shoulder. She kept going.

“I never _meant_ to hurt Garrus honest I didn’t I just there were these dumb turian kids teasing him and I tried to stop them but they started hitting me and it hurt so much so I tried to hit them back but then my biotics showed up and I _missed_ and now Garrus probably hates me and and sometimes I just want a hug but I can’t ask for one because—because turians just don’t _do_ that and…”

Sparatus wrapped his arms around her immediately, scooping her up as he stood. Jane squeezed his neck so tightly he was half-certain she would have choked him. Jane didn’t, though. She just gripped him hard with her long and thin limbs and sobbed into his shoulder.

“You’re right Jane. Turians don’t hug very often at all.” Jane’s arms loosened, and she pulled back. Shame colored her features, and she looked at him, confused. Sparatus spread his mandibles and tilted his head down. Smiling.

“But you’re not turian, are you Jane?”

They stayed there, holding each other for a moment. Sparatus motioned for Shiala to join in. Almost hesitantly, Shiala wrapped her own arms around Jane and Sparatus, Jane sandwiched in between the two. Jane kept sobbing, but Sparatus felt her features twist into happiness against his shoulder. Even if she dreaded speaking to her only friend once he woke up, for now all was right with the galaxy.

Sparatus soon found himself cooing a little, something that would normally flood him with embarrassment. The last time he had heard a turian coo was when his mother had seen him off for boot camp back when he was 12 and 3 years old. But here, with his daughter crying in his arms, he couldn’t care less.


	7. Promote the General Welfare

Garrus survived. Well, perhaps survived was a bit too dramatic. He was going to make a full recovery, at least. His arm would have to stay on a sling for a while to avoid undue movement while the bones healed, and he would have to walk on a crutch in order to maintain his balance while his spur reconnected to his leg. But he would live through the ordeal with minor scarring along his spur where it connected. Who knows, maybe he’d even start to show it off as he got older. Scars were attractive to some women, though don’t go spreading that around—turian women are fickle enough as it is. Don’t want to insult them.

Unfortunately, Garrus hadn’t taken the revelation that Jane was the one who biotically shot him up to the roof of the Armax Arena too well, at least not initially. He was more than perturbed, actually—quite a lot of confusion mixed with the effects of anesthesia not entirely wearing off yet made any attempt at explanation difficult. Garrus had always been brash and open with his opinion, so nothing he said was unexpected.

However, accusing Jane of never being his friend was more hurtful than he probably realized at the time. Sparatus had been keenly aware of how this would have been the first Garrus saw Jane cry. It was completely unheard of among turians, and it wasn’t well-known that humans spilled water from their eyes when saddened. Perhaps that contributed to him not seeing how hurt she was. Or perhaps he was just a soulless piece of filth in training and this was the first manifest of it.

If it weren’t for Shiala’s immeasurable patience and Jane’s willingness to maintain their friendship, Sparatus would have deemed convincing Garrus of continuing relations with his ward a lost cause. But they had both been quite persistent.

“She never would have hurt you on purpose, Garrus. You know that” Shiala had argued. There were many different arguments, all sound from a logical perspective. “She could not have had her biotics for more than a week at her age.” “Her spikes in power can easily be remedied by a biotic amp.” “You can survive this ordeal and you will grow stronger for it.” “It isn’t as if you’re going to stay on crutches forever.”

Jane’s arguments were more emotional. To be expected, when a thirteen year old girl was trying to convince her only friend for years that she didn’t severely injure him on purpose. Her arguments were more along the lines of “I don’t want to fight you, Garrus,” and “if you let me stay your friend I will let you make as many terrible jokes about my taste in food forever.” In the end, what sealed the deal was a back-and-forth argument about letting Garrus throw lemons at Jane and something about a juice box and heat sinks he didn’t quite understand. The end result was positive enough; Garrus and Jane were on good terms again.

Frankly, Sparatus sort of wished they weren’t. After Jane was permanently allowed to leave the house (and Sparatus had made clear that it was Jane’s responsibility to care for herself) she didn’t seem to want to go anywhere without the guy. Seeing a turian hobble around on a crutch and cradling a broken arm was nothing particularly special—Solana and Garrus traded many jokes on the matter before So headed off to the Turian Hierarchy in Palaven when she was of age—but seeing him hobble around with a human by his side? That would raise some eyebrows.

And, you know, a number of the places Jane and Garrus went to were… rather _notable_. He had recalled Jane telling him about visiting the Conduit in the center of the presidium right before the elevator to the Citadel Tower. Sparatus tried rather hard to steer the topic towards the historical significance of the monument—the Protheans and their ancient civilization, the Avatar of Vengeance and his success in destroying the Reapers, the Prothean scientists on Ilos that made a failsafe should the reapers ever somehow return.

But no, Jane only wanted to talk about how pretty it looked and how if you tilted your head correctly the false clouds on the ceiling of the Presidium kind of looked like the ancient turian symbols for ‘I want a sandwich’. Then she started talking about this one food place that she had seen—Ryuusei Sushi, near the Silversun Strip—and wouldn’t hush up about the wide variety of fish she saw and how badly she wanted to go eat there. And _then_ she would talk about how Garrus always wanted to go to the top of the Presidium where the support beams were and that Jane wanted to take him up there some time if she got permission and that was when Sparatus put his foot down and told her that she was _not_ going to trespass on the Presidium while he was still breathing.

Of course the new status quo _inside_ the apartment wasn’t much healthier. Shiala wasn’t just versed in the biotics taught to every asari in their general education, it turned out she was a honest-to-the-Goddess _commando_. And her ties with Benezia meant that modifying a state of the art asari biotic amp for (the incredibly similar, it turned out) human physiology was child’s play. Jane had a unique biotic amp of her own to use, and Sparatus felt a small bit of pride that his little girl only got the best.

He’d feel much more proud if she didn’t use her newfound abilities to give Urz a few tours of the ceiling as “Spider-Fish-Dog” and re-enacting old asari playwright’s works in midair with a PVC pipe and one of the rubber balls usually used to keep Urz from eating the couch. It was bad enough the blasted varren was reluctant to eat anything other than Pyjack meat after Jane’s foray into the Fish Dog Food Shack produced a far-too-big Pyjack burger (that Jane didn’t really like that much), he didn’t need to _pee on the ceiling_. Seeing Urz chomp down on those things started making him feel ill in the stomach—seeing him do those in simulated zero gravity? He needed a boulder to chew on.

Jane quickly found that there were standards of grooming that she had thus far been unaware of. One time she came back with Shiala with at least ten bags of things that he hardly understood. One bag was filled with hair products—at least three bottles of some kind of liquid used to clean it, a pronged device that turned it into straighter segments, what looked like a torture device that _curled_ it around in a way that made his stomach churn again, some odd-looking clip things that kept it out of her face, colorful rubber bands that tied her hair back, a… _thing_ with teeth on it for thinner segments of hair. Seeing a fringe bend and twirl like that made him sick. He would bet three quarters of his fortune that Jane could make him sick just by _blinking_.

That didn’t even get to the human marking paint that she had found. Evidently, the marks made on a human’s face were purely for cosmetic value, not any indication of family history or cultural significance. The myriad experiments she had with Shiala with various different shades of “fingernail polish” and combinations of thin face paint with some unusual colors of “lipstick” confused him and made him dizzy.

Sparatus had also recently found himself spending some more time with Shiala without Jane around. She would go out and give Urz a walk, or buy some new datapads, or do whatever it is she did, and they would be left to their own devices. Often they would work together to get the apartment back in order, speaking about things happening in their lives.

“You know, Shiala, I’ve never found out where you lived in all these years. How’s your own house keeping up?” He asked.

“I’ve been meaning to bring that up actually.” Shiala said. “Matriarch Benezia has recently informed me of an… issue she’s having. With her daughter.” Oh. That wasn’t good. “She told me that she cannot afford to house me on the Citadel while she is off assisting her. She has donated much of her wealth to charities over the years, but she has to sell the apartment in order to afford a shuttle to Thessia.”

“Are you planning on going with the Matriarch?” Sparatus asked, turning up from his dusting to watch Shiala finish reorganizing the cabinets and throwing away the spoiled food. She stood up from her crouching position and looked at him.

“I doubt I will go with her. I was…well, I have another idea.” She said. “I am aware that your apartment has three bedrooms available. If you allow it, I would like to stay here with you and Jane while Matriarch Benezia is on Thessia.”

Sparatus froze, deep in thought. The offer chilled him a bit, and made him feel a little ill. That was unusual—Shiala had almost never made him feel ill to his stomach unless Jane was around. Well, perhaps she was involved technically, but… Sparatus considered. Privately, it would be nothing but beneficial for all parties concerned—Jane could practice her biotics more, Shiala had a place to stay, and Sparatus himself would have an extra pair of hands to help around the house picking up after Urz.

But publicly? Publicly this could be a disaster. He had no doubt that word would get out about Sparatus having an asari in his apartment. He spent more time making absolutely certain that the public never knew Jane was in his house being raised than making sure Shiala’s frequent visits were covered. There had already been a couple of annoying salarian tabloid journalists that had noticed the patterns of an asari with decidedly turian birthmarks visiting the Turian Councilor at regular intervals.

“I understand if you cannot, Sparatus.” Shiala suddenly intervened while he was still thinking. “I know that the rumors about asari promiscuity can be harmful to the reputation of a high ranking turian. If I cannot stay here, then I will be more than happy to take my leave with the esteemed Matriarch.”

“No! I mean…” Sparatus’ head began to swim with lightheadedness. “In all honesty, Shiala. I think that Jane’s mental health is more important than my reputation.” The words were tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Well, what I would like to say is, I mean, my private life should not be the public’s business. Jane needs you for a sense of stability. To put it bluntly, you are the only mother figure she has in her life right now. I would be more than happy to let you stay. For her sake.”

Shiala gave a solemn looking smirk, but otherwise nodded. “Thank you, Councilor. I will do my best not to intrude.” Shiala walked over to the refrigerator and plucked out an energy bar. She ate it solemnly, and Sparatus held his head, feeling ill.

“Right. Well, maybe we should…” Sparatus had begun to walk over to one of the islands in the kitchen, when suddenly the whole world swam and he tripped. His hands were freezing and he felt incredibly nauseous. He kept his mouth shut as much as he could.

“Sparatus? Are you feeling well?” Shiala asked calmly. She walked towards him slowly, but Sparatus couldn’t pay too much attention without sputtering out in a coughing fit. Shiala placed a tentative hand on his cowl, but then Sparatus couldn’t hold it in anymore. This was not good. He hobbled quickly to the sink, where they had thankfully already finished putting away the dishes.

He vomited right into the sink, large chunks of undigested food tainting his mouth. Among the large glop of disgusting food chunks and undigested bones and rocks he could barely see, a deep blue shade splashed onto it from his mouth, leaving the unmistakable taste of copper. Oh spirits, this was _definitely_ not good.

Far away, he could hear Shiala rubbing the back of his cowl and trying to see if he was choking. But he just couldn’t stop puking, and he felt bloated, and the world swam and he was freezing cold and he had never felt so sick in his life. From a thousand miles away he heard Shiala speak into her omni-tool in what an untrained ear would find unusually calm but he had been with her as Jane’s teacher for, what, eight, nine years? She wasn’t calm at all right now. This was as panicked as Shiala would ever get and she kind of looked green from this angle but then he had to heave his gizzard out of his body and he grabbed his mouth to try to keep it in…

Then the world swam in a circle and he felt the avalanche of cold engulfing him again and he remembered Valern’s increasingly strange dreams in that warm cabin in the middle of nowhere in the land of cold and pointy trees, remembered Kawacatoose and President Liu and Tevos and Hannah Shepard and the neutral-chirality food bars he had to survive on and suddenly he found himself crumpled on the floor with Shiala and surrounded by a blanket with Hannah at the same time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In accordance with a No-Reapers AU, I wanted to keep the Conduit around and I wanted Liara to still study the protheans (because she’s going to make appearances later). So, I found a solution; have the Reapers still come for their Cycle, but have the Protheans succeed in building the Crucible. Javik was the champion of that Cycle, and destroyed the Reapers without remorse for the loss of all Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately most of the protheans were spread extremely thin by the time this happened, and Javik had “low EMS”, so they were screwed even though the Reapers were dead and gone, and died out anyway.
> 
> Thousands of years later the galaxy follows the same timeline it did in canon, only now the Reapers are dead and gone. The Conduit is there because Vigil opened up their canisters early, and the scientists all decided it would be better to have a failsafe in place, in case the Reapers weren’t actually destroyed. Thus the Conduit was created to make certain that the species of the future were allowed a chance, just in case.
> 
> And also, kudos to anyone who realized that Sparatus’ constant nausea was foreshadowing rather than just a simple character quirk! I apologize that this chapter is shorter than usual, but it just came out that way.


	8. Secure the Blessings of Liberty

Chapter 8

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The sound of his own breathing was louder than it had ever been before. His eyes felt like they were sewn shut by “skilled asari artisans” and the garment he was wearing on his body felt like what he had imagined an asari burial robe would feel like. Morbid thought, but frankly the only other thing he had to think about was how oxygen was being pushed into his system by something on his mouth that he couldn’t describe. That, and an incessant beeping noise to his left.

With great difficulty, he started to shift on limbs which felt unusually stiff and flimsy. His eyes started to squint open, but he was greeted only by the color white. He grabbed onto the railings on the bed he was in, slowly, pulling himself up. Once he was comfortably sitting, he finally noticed a remote on a tray to his right, and if he lifted his head a bit more he could see a large window overlooking the Presidium.

Ah. So he was in that new hospital on the Presidium. Top class medical professionals, highest technology the Citadel funds could afford, and completely free from discrimination against clients due to the wide range of medical professionals for each species, even drell, hanar, elcor... And the hospital that was distinctly _not finished yet._

Thinking slowly, he grabbed the remote from the tray and pushed a button to lift the bed upwards to better accommodate him. It rose up as slowly as he did, and he stopped it at a nice spot where his cowl could rest comfortably against the pillows and he could see straight. Why was he even in a hospital anyway? How long had he been knocked out? And why had that happened? Did someone duel him recently or…? 

He rubbed at an itch on his abdomen and was greeted with a number of stitches and a few wires digging into his skin, connected to an IV. Absentmindedly removing the breathing apparatus on his mouth, he looked the remote over again to see if this thing also called room service or something. It didn’t, as far as he could tell, but it didn’t seem to matter because soon enough a door he didn’t realize was there opened and a turian woman came in, clad in the standard white-and-cream uniform for turian medical specialists.

“Councilor Sparatus.” She said, giving a salute. “Doctor Nehalem Quinoa. I was the specialist in charge of your emergency treatment.” She stood straight and with her hands behind her back, waiting for Sparatus to respond. His tongue felt like a giant wad of cotton in his mouth, but he found the sense to at least say _something._

“What ex… exactly happened?” He said, grunting as he shifted to find a more comfortable position. Who designed this thing, anyway? It clearly wasn’t meant for turian physiology.

“Put bluntly, esteemed Councilor sir, your gizzard stopped working.”

“What?” Sparatus said. Dr. Quinoa blinked.

“Well, in more detail, your gizzard has been suffering from a slowed form of anaphylaxis. My team and I had to perform an emergency surgical procedure in order to remove bits of food that has been sticking to your digestive system due to your gizzard’s failure to liquefy food.”

“Alright, Doctor. Two things. One, that is disgusting. Two, how in the name of the Spirits did I manage to contract anaphylaxis in my _gizzard_ of all places?” Dr. Quinoa nodded, clamping her mandibles shut and crossing her arms.

“From what I could tell, at some point at least ten years ago you had consumed some levo-amino based rations without immediate adverse effects. If it had only been a one-time thing, it would have passed through your system without doing anything, but I found evidence of repeated consumption while… removing the undigested food still in there.” Sparatus narrowed his eyes.

“Go on.”

“Repeated consumption of those rations you ate caused a lot of havoc with your internal organs over time, sir. Your digestive system has been obstructed due to your body’s refusal to digest the proteins and what I am assuming is repeatedly swallowing down any attempts of vomiting?”

Sparatus looked down at his knees. Guilt washed over him, but also confusion and fear. Had he been slowly dying of a digestive illness because he was too stubborn to let himself puke, of all things? How…?

“So, what’s the damage, doctor? Were you able to… remove the obstructions?” Sparatus asked. Dr. Quinoa, however, shook her mandibles and shut her eyes. Sparatus knew that particular combination of body language. That was the kind of combination that came just before something like “your _sappa_ got hit by a truck this morning” or “your house has been flung into the sun”.

“Unfortunately, Esteemed Councilor, your digestive system has overworked itself trying to get rid of the rations. Your gizzard has been in engaged in prolonged hypo-motility for at _least ten years._ I’m surprised it even held out this long, but…” She sucked in a breath. “I had to perform serious surgery on your gizzard to clean it out, and your system couldn’t take any more strain.”

Sparatus closed his eyes tightly.

“You’ve been diagnosed with Post-operational Digestive Ileus. Your digestive system has been paralyzed and it is doubtful you will ever be able to eat solid food ever again. I am sorry.”

* * *

 

Sparatus never realized how monotonous the Presidium was until he had to stare at it for five days straight because there was nothing better to do. It was on the third day he realized, if it weren’t for the speedy response of Shiala, he could have died of digestive poisoning and never seen it again. He would have been dead, another tally-marked groove on his personal serrated blade. He absentmindedly wondered what the groove for “died of digestive poisoning” would be. Or what the groove for “died because he stupidly ate the wrong kind of food ten years prior and didn’t tell anyone about it.”

He had few visitors. He was an only child and both of his parents had passed away in a blaze of glory to stop a band of Eclipse Mercenaries ten years ago, so unfortunately nobody had “privileged access” to visit that he actually cared to talk to. Especially not while having to suffer through getting nutritional gunk shoved up an incredibly long tube stuck in his nose. Shiala was not listed as anything more than a regular visitor among his official, not-classified files, and Jane’s status as his ward was heartily classified. Racial tensions between turians and humans were still far too high to risk a political fallout.

Unfortunately that meant that the only people he was allowed to see for now were medical professionals. Doctor Kimarick, his own personal doctor, had visited him and gave him a very thorough chewing out for not reporting the nausea attacks he’d been having, and looked ready to drill Sparatus between the eyes if the good doctor hadn’t taken the oath to preserve life wherever possible. Doctor Michel was slated to visit him earlier today, ostensibly to make sure the human-made medical bed wasn’t causing him any discomfort, but she was horrendously late by about three hours.

“How’s Jane?” Sparatus asked as soon as she had arrived. The young doctor shook her head before answering. It took a moment for Sparatus’ translator to parse her thick, nigh-incomprehensible accent (to his ears, at least) so her words were a little detached from her lip movements.

“She’s staying with Shiala in the apartment, so no need to worry about that. But she’s having serious internal conflicts over your illness. Shiala believes it might be connected to painful memories of… well, the _Konietzko_.” Sparatus looked at his knees and shook his head. Of course this would have happened, he thought. Jane had already lost her parents once when the _Konietzko_ was raided and all but 5 of the security personnel slaughtered by batarian pirates. The turian she was supposed to stay with for the rest of her life had suddenly doubled over the sink and puked everything in his abdomen would obviously remind her of that.

What had she seen on the _Konietzko_? What did she even remember? The images he got from the security vids taken during the raid were gruesome, to say the least. He never spoke to her about it. Maybe he should have. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“What do you expect me to do about it, Dr. Michel?” Sparatus spat. “I’m bedridden until my condition stabilizes and my stomach understands that it’s not going to have the luxury of solid food for the rest of _forever._ Believe me, I would love to be there for Jane right now but my hands are tied.” He said, hating himself for saying it. He wanted to let her know with her own eyes that he was going to be okay, but the politics… Dr. Michel bowed her head and crossed her arms despondently.

“Perhaps we can get Jane to you, instead…?” she all but whispered after a short bout of silence. Sparatus tilted his head, piercing through her with his eyes to get her to continue. She had to understand that if anyone saw Jane and Shiala walking into the hospital to visit the reporters would have a field day? Didn’t…

Didn’t _he_ understand that any journalist worth their salt would find his recent medical condition more important to spread? He obviously had to take great care with his job, every word he said could be misconstrued. At the end of the day, what he and his private sector knew was more important than what the faceless masses of the galaxy chose to believe. Not being allowed to see his daughter during his time of illness was doing nothing but add insult to injury.

Michel shuffled her feet a little. “If we can just make it less of a classified situation with her, we could—“

“You know what? Do it.”

The words tumbled out of Sparatus’ mouth before he could stop them. “I’m… sorry?” Dr. Michel queried.

“I don’t care what the public thinks right now, Dr. Michel. If they don’t even have the decency to let me suffer my illness in private they aren’t credible news sources in the first place. All I care about right now is getting used to my new routine… and letting my daughter know I’m alright.” He stared at Dr. Michel, hunched over a little. He breathed in through one nostril while the other was plugged with nutrient-pumping liquid that felt really really gross and invasive but he didn’t care about that at the moment. Dr. Michel’s lips began to turn up at the edges.

“I’ll let Shiala know right away.”

* * *

Ileus was a terrible disease and Sparatus sincerely hoped nobody would ever have to suffer through it ever again. Evidently not only did he have to drink liquid medicines and nutritional paste for the rest of his life, he _also_ had to keep close tabs on his blood sugar, pricking his thumb regularly to make sure his nutrients were actually being accepted by his body. There were still stitches along his abdomen and he had to wear a brace until they were ready to be removed, and it made sitting down difficult and slouching out of the question.

Jane had walked into his room at the hospital clutching a pamphlet similar to the ones he had been reading. A closer look told him that it was about how to survive when you parent had a life-altering disease. The embrace they had shared all but broke his heart. Jane had said nothing, but Sparatus was almost entirely certain that she was afraid he was going to die of his illness. He quickly dismissed that claim, saying that death was an illusion and he was an immortal demon vampire to try and cheer her up. He didn’t hear her laugh, but the quick breath she took in was enough.

Shiala was a great support beam for his life after he was finally deemed well enough to leave the hospital. She helped him walk out of the medical wheelchair and get his blood pumping through his legs again, while Jane ran back and forth between the taxi and his wheelchair for who knows why. Nerves, probably. He sat in the passenger seat while Shiala drove and Jane sat in the back, staring outside and tapping her fingers against her knees.

“How are you feeling, Councilor?” Shiala had asked. Sparatus shook his head slightly, at the very least grateful that spirits-forsaken tube was out of his nose.

“There’s nothing in particular that I wish to say. Though I do have more sympathy for the Quarians now than I did before.”

“It must be annoying to have to survive off of nutrient paste forever.” Shiala said.

“More than annoying. It’s inhibiting. Constricting. Like one of the joys of life has been forcibly sucked out of my grasp and thrust into the sun in such a way that it is nothing more than a pile of dust.” He spat the words out more and more as he continued, his subharmonics rising in pitch uncontrollably. He wanted nothing more than to scream about it, thrash against something and maybe even eat a Pyjack-burger like the kind Urz would scarf down just to spite his illness. At the same time, he noticed more small things than he ever had before, like the colors of the nebula they were in and the quiet way the taxi flew from the Presidium, into the light atmosphere between the ward arms to their destination.

“Perhaps you can channel that energy towards doing good for others.” Shiala said. Sparatus looked at her and breathed in a little too quickly.

“I suppose you contacted the matriarch and she has given you some… _advice_ on the situation?”

“Actually, it was a saying my father had told me when I was very young and had broken an arm.” Shiala said, waxing nostalgic. “I believe his exact words were, ‘though one part of the spirit may have changed, that does not mean it cannot still contribute.’ I took it to heart and helped random people with my biotics for a few days before I forgot about it and started yelling at him about how much I despised my art teacher.”

“If you forgot about it, how come you remember it?” Jane suddenly asked. Sparatus shot a glance in her direction and then returned his gaze to Shiala. She was still smiling, but it had faded at the edges, and her hands grew stiff on the wheel.

“My father died when I was about 89. He was 132, and it was starting to show. Hobbling along on a cane with cracked plates along his face, yelling at the ankle-biters to get away from his _Orachla_ plants in the garden, insisting that back in his day they had to jog ten miles to the store in pouring rain with no jackets while in boot camp. But then he had a seizure and toppled over, and mother called me to see him while I was in the middle of a study crunch with my roommates in college.”

She paused, and her eyes started to shine with something, but the bright lights of the advertisements the began to pass made it hard to tell. Sparatus counted how many times the colors of the ads bled through the windows and bathed her face in yellow, turning her lavender skin green for a moment. The square lights passed over her face fourteen times before she took in a thin breath and continued.

“I held my father’s hand in mine along with my mother and… I asked him what he wanted me to do after he was gone. He said the same thing then as he said when I asked him how to deal with my broken arm. ‘Though one part of the spirit may have changed, that does not mean it cannot still contribute.’”

“And you think I can follow his wisdom too.” Sparatus muttered. Shiala nodded, then swallowed.

 “Yes. I know it helped me. After that experience, I quit college and transferred to the Asari Military Unit in my area, and made it to Commander when I was 237. Then I was assigned to travel with Matriarch Benezia as a bodyguard, stuff happened, and I became one of her disciples instead.”

“And after a convoluted series of events you ended up becoming a home teacher for a little human girl from a military family who was adopted by the turian Councilor of the Citadel. No offense Shiala, but your life’s pretty weird.” Jane said. Shiala burst into a snort-laugh, and Sparatus couldn’t help but smile. The little things he had begun to notice started to have more use than just giving him a more detailed picture of the galaxy. Perhaps it just made things a little bit brighter, too.

“I’m glad we’re all okay.” Jane said quietly. As the sky car gently landed in front of the Tiberius Towers, Sparatus removed his seatbelt and took a quick look behind him, more readily able to turn now.

“So am I, Jane.” They smiled the same relieved smile at each other for just a moment longer. “So am I.”

In Sparatus' peripheral vision, Shiala smiled as well.


End file.
